Weapons Free
by angelicxdiscord
Summary: We've been fighting this war for a long time. Muggles, they call us.  They struck first. England fell. Then France. Spain. Italy. It took us ten years of tactical withdrawals and air strikes to stop their advance.  Now it was our turn to push back.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Bastogne

"Command, this is Sniper Team Sierra. Targets acquired."

I adjusted the magnification of my spotting scope, narrowing in on specific individuals.

Male. Long red hair and beard. Scarring across the right cheek and forehead. Forearm tattoo of a crest framing an intertwined lion and eagle. "Have visual on High Value Targets Griffin – "

Refocus.

Female. Brown hair with blue streaks. Blacked out eyes. Missing left index finger. " – Crow – "

Male. Bald. Mutilated tongue, forked. Green slit eyes. " – Python – "

Female. Obese. Greying blond hair. Eye patch, right eye. Leaves and vines tattooed behind the right ear, stretching down the throat. " – and Badger. Uplinking images now."

"Sierra One November, identity of occult combatants confirmed. Standby."

Occult combatants. Oscar. Also known as witches and wizards. No one knew they existed until the Vanishings ten years ago.

Dundee was the first city. A hundred fifty thousand people, gone over night. The authorities had no idea what was happening. Wild theories abounded, from large-scale corrosive biochemical attacks to alien invasion. The city and surrounding boroughs were quarantined, watched over by government security checkpoints. The Jt CBRN Regiment sent the Noddies of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment to contain the situation.

Then Aberdeen went silent.

And everything went downhill from there.

It was July twelfth, a warm summer morning. Glasgow was just waking up when a quarter million corpses descended upon the city. The men, women, and children of Aberdeen and Dundee. We call them the Reanimated. Oscar calls them "Inferi." Fast. Strong. Immune to conventional firearms.

We didn't stand a chance.

But we fought on regardless. The Armed Forces of the Crown and NATO air support engaged in a desperate delaying action as the undead horde and their Oscar handlers swept south. The Meat Grinder, the papers called it. Everyday brought news of divisions annihilated, kilometres retreated, and cities lost. Edinburgh. Manchester. London.

There were too many unknowns with Oscar. They acted, we reacted. Oscar sent Reanimated, we began using incendiary ammunition. Oscar started using active camo, we started distributing thermographic scopes. We were playing this war by their rules and it was killing us. Yes, we had our moments, learning how Oscar operated, developing strategies around their weaknesses. But for England, it was too little too late.

As the frontline collapsed towards Poole, the last major city held by English forces, it became increasingly apparent that losing the British Isles was inevitable. As Oscar and his Reanimated marched on Poole, the decision was made to evacuate what was left of the English population to the continent. Fourteen thousand survivors, including military personnel.

Four squadrons of the Special Boat Service volunteered to hold the city in an effort to buy time for the evacuation. Any and every flight- and sea-worthy vehicle was press-ganged into service, to pull the survivors out of the conflict zone. Squadrons C, X, M, and Z set up a defensive perimeter around Poole. Outnumbered, out gunned, surrounded with no hope of escape. They were six hundred against six million.

The SBS held the city for a week. When they ran out of ammunition for their primaries, they fought on with their side arms. When they ran out of ammunition for their side arms, they fought hand to hand, room to room, prolonging the enemy's mop-up and clear operations.

Their blood bought the RAF and private citizens of England enough time to evacuate ten thousand survivors.

I was one of the ten thousand lucky ones. My name is Torrance Winters. Yes, _that_ Torrance Winters. Socialite. Celebutante. The shipping heiress turned model that made weekly headlines with her inability to wear knickers and general incompetence at operating expensive motor vehicles. Pictures of me could feed a paparazzo's family for a month. I was a nineteen year old with a drinking problem. I was an idiot.

Two years in the refugee camps and eight years of combat fixed that.

"Command, lock down protocols are in effect."

"Copy that, White Hat."

White Hats. Wizards collaborating with our armed forces. They joined us just after the invasion of France. Apparently, there were two factions within the Wizarding population: the Hawks and the Dovish. There was some sort of internal conflict, a civil war. Ideological differences regarding us "Muggles," they said. Whatever it was, it didn't end well for the Dovish. When the dust settled, most of them had been wiped out and the Hawks decided to launch their war against conventional human beings. Through some combination of survival instinct and moral outrage, the Dovish joined our ranks.

And let me tell you, the White Hats were damn useful, especially regarding information on Oscar's capabilities and the nullification of certain Oscar abilities.

Like sodding teleportation.

Unfortunately, even with their help, we weren't able to reverse engineer Oscar's more useful inventions. Like say, active camo. Invisibility Cloaks, I believe they're called. Those things would have been bloody useful for this assignment. As it was, Jeffrey and I ghosted into Bastogne, behind enemy lines, the old fashioned way: ghillie suits. Thank God the Belgians had a healthy appetite for urban open spaces.

Belgium. A week after England fell, Oscar jumped the Chunnel and invaded continental Europe. They crawled steadily forward, steamrolling through Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy. It took us eight long years of combat to stop their advance, millions of lives paid to halt Oscar just short of the Rhine.

And we decided to push back.

As members of the first generation 22 Regiment DSAS (Displaced Special Air Service) "A" Squadron, my partner and I were attached to the American forces operating in this sector. Even after the destruction of England, the remnants of the British Armed Forces fought on; we were folded into existing NATO/Eastern Bloc forces, providing frontline support across the American, German, Russian, and Chinese battle lines. The DSAS had a reputation for – well, let's put it this way: we're the ones that train everyone else's special operations units. Which was why Jeffrey and I were pulling wet work duty for Iron Storm.

Operation Iron Storm. A simultaneous strike by Russian, Chinese, German, and American forces across the entire Western Front. Our first real act of aggression since the beginning of this damn war. We sunk months, years into this operation, patiently building up manpower and resources to fuel the big push into Oscar territory. And, as luck would have it, we chose the perfect time to stage our assault.

Thirteen days ago, the American's Key Hole satellites located Oscar's forward command post in Bastogne, a single story structure formerly occupied by Fortis Bank. Ten days ago, our White Hat spies informed us that a high-level meeting involving key members of the Oscar military structure would take place at that very location, coinciding with the time frame of our planned counteroffensive. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. Which is why I ended up on the roof of a three-story building in Bastogne, cold and stiff, staring at four HVTs, waiting for the go order.

"Sierra, Shrike Ops, Michelle. I say again, Michelle."

Ah, Michelle. Which would be the go order. I activated the targeting laser mounted on my spotting scope. "Target painted," I transmitted.

"Shrike Ops, execute kill order."

The MQ-1 Predator circling overhead launched its payload. The two AGM-114N Hellfire II missiles locked onto my laser, riding the beam toward Oscar's forward command post. As the thermobaric weapons closed within a klick of the target, high pitched shrieks echoed through the building. Everyone inside turned an eye to the closest window. Some of them saw the Hellfires coming. There wasn't enough time to verbalize incantations or any of that shit. So they tried the next best thing: concentrate and turn in place.

Nothing happened.

Like I said, no sodding teleportation.

The first fuel-air explosive detonated ten metres above the target, blanketing the area in fire, completely obliterating the front wall. The remaining walls channelled the resulting shockwaves through the structure, scouring the building with 3000°C worth of fire and 430 pounds-force per square inch worth of overpressure.

Then the second Hellfire hit.

Thermobaric munitions do unspeakable things to soft targets; Oscar was no exception. Bodies and body parts became hopeless intermixed with the masonry, a sure sign that everyone within was dead or dying.

Except for two. HVTs Crow and Python, defying all known laws of biology and physics, came staggering out of that mess.

"Sierra, you are weapons free."

Which is where Jeff and I come in.

I rattled off range, windage, elevation, all the information a good sniper requires to touch his target. Jeff shifted slightly, eye glued to the Schimdt & Bender 3-12x50 PM II P telescopic sight mounted on his AI AS50 anti-material rifle.

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Jeffrey Lei, the ticket puncher of our little duo. A heavily tattooed Chinese man with bear-like proportions, Jeff had been a twenty-one year old Private in the 16 Air Assault Brigade when the war started. His unit was deployed in Afghanistan when the Reanimated swept through Edinburgh and assimilated his friends, family, fiancée… everyone he knew. After the Massacre of Edinburgh, Jeff transferred to a frontline unit and volunteered for every major combat action since the fall of London. Ten years of combat experience. Which means Jeff's very good at what he does and what he does isn't nice.

Jeff took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The anti-material rifle produced a bass thump that reverberated in my chest. The .50 BMG cartridge traversed 1.5 klicks to the target, dropped into Crow's chest cavity, and blew a football-sized exit wound out her back.

Seconds later, Python took a round in the gut, obliterating half his abdomen. The following round landed just under his left orbital socket.

A quick survey of the scene yielded four dead HVTs mixed in with the other bodies. Two blown to pieces by the Hellfires, two blown to pieces by several .50 calibre rounds. "Command, confirm four kills."

"Copy that, Sierra. All call signs, initiate strike. Sierra, fall ba – "

"INCOMING!" Jeff roared.

An explosion rocked our building. Too small to be one of the flyboys.

"Bugger," I breathed as I spotted the cloud of wizards and Reanimated converging on our position. "Move, move!"

No time to pack things up nicely. Jeff's AS50 and my spotting scope went into a nearby waste bin. A thermite grenade was thrown into the mix. As the thermite torched any useful intel Oscar might obtain from our electronics, we scrambled down three flights and scooted out the back door. We got out just in time to see Oscar raze the building.

"Contact west!" Jeff's Mk 12 Mod 0 SPR whispered twice as Oscar pulled within five hundred metres of our position, planting two rounds into the closest threat. The first ricocheted off an invisible array surrounding the wizard. The second lodged in his brainpan. "Hostile down."

Double taps. One bullet to knock down Oscar's force field, one bullet to kill him. Standard operating procedure.

"Command, our position has been compromised" – I slid behind an abandoned vehicle and took a brief moment to return fire as green flashes lit up our position – "I repeat, our position has been compromised! We're taking heavy fire from multiple contacts! Requesting air support in Sector Eight Charlie!"

"Roger that, Sierra. Fall back to the east, toward extraction point X-ray. Talon One, Tempest Three-Two, push to Kill Box Eight Charlie to provide close air support."

"Lighting beacon." I toggled the little electronic switch clipped to my combat webbing, activating the infrared strobe light.

"Sparkle lit," Jeff transmitted.

"This is Talon One. Confirm friendlies marked with strobes. We're good for one pass. Name your target."

I dropped one of the Reanimated with a single incendiary bullet to the sternum. "Talon One, fire mission, danger close. Hostile Oscar and Reanimated forces three hundred metres west of our location, over."

"Copy that, we're coming in hot."

A pair of RAF Eurofighter Typhoons screamed by overhead, a Paveway III detaching from each aircraft. The laser guided bombs impacted in the midst of the approaching enemy formation, leaving little more than blood and shattered masonry. Even Oscar's magical shields can't stop nine hundred and seven kilograms of high explosives.

That's the one thing we got right in this bloody war: air superiority. Any flying unit they could field, we could blow out of the sky. Dragons, wizards on broomsticks, what have you. We had two advantages over Oscar: speed and weapon range. It's somewhat difficult to engage something that can direct a missile up your arse at a range of sixty-five klicks and run away at Mach 2. Ever try intercepting a missile travelling at Mach 1.3 without computerized targeting? Good luck.

The ground shook as other fighter units initiated Stage Two of Operation Iron Storm: shock and awe. Also known as bombing the hell out of the Oscar's front line.

"Contact north!" I shouted, shifting my silenced SPR. "They're trying to – "

Too late. Enemy personnel swept in around our left flank and dug in east of our position, cutting off our retreat.

Shit. Here they come. First Oscar got a double tap to the chest. The second wizard went down with a single shot; I managed to sneak a bullet in before the bloke's shield came up. Thank God Oscar had no concept of cover; their conviction in the innate superiority of magic over modern weaponry makes things much easier for me.

Not that arrogance was going to help me here; based on the numbers converging on our position, being overrun was a very real possibility. "Tempest Three-Two, target enemy forces four hundred metres east of our location."

"Roger that, standby for air support."

Call sign Tempest Three-Two, an AH-64D Apache Longbow, swooped in and laced the designated area with chain gun fire and rockets, the Hydra 70s and autocannon rounds tearing through Oscar's ranks.

Let me tell you, nothing boosts morale like a friendly attack chopper.

"Hostile group neutralized."

"Roger that, Tempest. Thanks for the – "

The air two hundred metres south of our position distorted, a huge hand pushing out the centre of the anomaly. The rift widened, drawn back like a curtain, and nine metres of plate armour emerged.

Fuck.

" – Goliath on your six! Tempest, get the hell out of here!"

I squeezed off a couple of rounds as the giant cleared the threshold of his invisible tent. The incendiary hollowpoints, designed for soft targets, pinged uselessly off Goliath's steel helmet.

Tempest Three-Two rotated, attempting to bring Goliath under his guns.

Too late.

The giant's hurlbat was already airborne. The throwing axe tumbled end over end, cutting a graceful arc through the cloudless sky.

And sliced cleanly through Tempest's tail rotor.

"I'm hit, I'm hit! Tail rotor's gone! Mayday, mayday, this is Three-Two going down! Three-Two is going in hard!"

The helicopter spiralled lazily out of the sky and impacted against a glass-shrouded building, sliding out of sight. A column of smoke marked the downed Apache's location, a beacon for friendly and enemy forces.

Jesus.

"We have an Apache down, I repeat, we have an Apache down."

"Goliaths confirmed in the city. All chopper units, fall back until further notice."

"Command, this is Shrike Ops. Hostiles converging on the crash site… Hold on, we see movement in the cockpit… Confirm, small arms fire coming from the cockpit."

"Tempest, what's your status?"

A series of wet coughs crackled across the com. "Kovacs' dead! I've got no mobility, both…" – a burst of static – "…got multiple contacts advancing on my location!"

Shit. I glanced at Jeff. He quirked a smile psychotic axe murderers would be proud of. "You think you're up for it?"

Glaring at him, I keyed my throat mic. "Command, this is Sierra. We have a visual on the crash site. Request permission to initiate search and rescue."

"Be advised, Sierra, First Armoured is reporting heavy resistance; it could take quite some time before ground support arrives. Do you understand?"

"Roger that, Command."

There was a pause. "Copy that, permission granted. Secure the crash site until reinforcements arrive. Additional air support is en route."

Jeff and I sprinted toward the pillar of smoke, pausing only to put down a stray Oscar or two that survived the airstrikes. We got maybe half a block when the giant loomed around the corner behind us. He saw Jeff and me, of course; it's hard to miss two people dressed like walking carpets. "Goliath!" I screamed as the giant unleashed an ear-splitting roar and thundered after us. Jeff, for some insane reason, turned and dropped to one knee, drawing a bead on the giant's exposed eyes. "JEFF, LET'S GO!"

A new voice crackled over the intercom. "We have a Goliath in the open."

"Reaper Four, you are clear to engage."

An uncomfortable buzzing permeated the air, reminiscent of a zipper being drawn. A giant, evil fucking zipper. In five seconds, three hundred and twenty 30mm depleted uranium armour-piercing shells slammed into the giant, shredding steel plate and flesh. The giant crumpled into an earth-shaking heap, cratering the worn pavement beneath him.

A pair of 'Hogs pulled out of their dive and circled around, scanning for additional targets. Initially designed to kill tanks and other heavily-armoured vehicles, the A-10 Thunderbolt IIs (or Warthogs, as we prefer to call them) proved to be effective against the larger armoured creatures fielded by Oscar, especially the clumsy, ponderous Goliaths.

"I could've taken him," Jeff grumbled. "Jesus, where's the trust?"

"Thanks for the assist, Reaper." I reached out and gave Jeff a good whack on the shoulder. He grinned.

"_De nada_, Sierra. We'll clear the path for you."

The A-10s went ahead and did their thing, lighting up the streets ahead. Enemy resistance in our general area evaporated, save for the odd Reanimated; Oscar knew what the 'Hogs were capable of. Jeff and I leapfrogged block by silent block towards the crash site, each covering the other's advance.

We found ourselves in the financial district, just short of the crash site. Smoke from the downed Apache billowed lazily towards the sky, just across the street, behind a wall of buildings. A single structure separated us from the crash site, one of those corporate skyscrapers, all glass and steel. Well, half a skyscraper, shattered glass and bent steel. Air strikes will do that to a city.

I heard the distinctive chatter of gunfire first. Then the smell hit me, a combination of jet fuel, smoke, and burned circuitry.

"Sierra, the crash site is directly on the other side of that building," Shrike Ops informed us.

Almost there. "Tempest, we're approaching your position from the east."

"Affirmative, Sierra! I've got multiple contacts coming from all directions! I could use some help in here!"

"Copy that, Tempest. We're coming in through the building."

Jeff cut in to the conversation. "Two sentries covering the rear entrance."

"I got the one on the right." I brought the SPR to my shoulder, the tango's head tracing lazy circles in my reticule.

"In three… two… one…"

The image in my scope went deathly still as I gently squeezed the trigger. Pink mist haloed my target before he went down. "Tango down."

Jeff's target collapsed, a gaping hole where his left eye used to be. "Hostile neutralized."

A quick visual sweep of the neighbouring offices yielded no further Oscar forces. "Cover me."

With a deep breath, I sprinted across the street, my back itching from the lack of cover every step of the way. No green flash, no explosions. So far, so good. I slid to a halt behind the rusted carcass of a gaudy SUV and made a second, far more thorough sweep of the street. "All clear."

Jeff, deceptively silent despite his mass, swept by my position and ghosted into the building through one of the broken windows. A few moments went by before Jeff's voice whispered over the intercom. "Two hostiles, front lobby."

"Hold on a second." I headed to the dead sentries and sifted through their robes, looking for… ah, there we go. One on each corpse. Carefully wrapping the items with strips of cloth torn from the sentry's cloaks, I followed in Jeff's footsteps.

"Here." I handed Jeff one of the MCDs (Mirror Communication Devices) looted from the bodies. The MCDs were Oscar's analogue to our wireless network, allowing audio and visual data to be transmitted to active nodes, like the ones Jeff and I were holding. As long as we carefully blinded the mirrors with cloth, we could access Oscar's lines of communication without revealing the breach of their system.

I held the MCD to my ear as we crept past the elevators and stopped just outside the front lobby, one corner separating us from Oscar. "Armoured carriages have broken through the third line" – "Where's our reinforcements? We're taking heavy casualties at…" – "Outpost Three, report. Your conversion field has dissipated."

A harried voice accompanied by submachine gun fire drifted around the corner, originating from inside the building. "This is Outpost Three! One of the Muggle's fucking mechanical dragons crashed right on top of us and disrupted the bloody spell! Newell and Trask got caught in the back blast; Hook and I are the only ones left! We cannot sustain the levels required to power the Transfiguration!"

Another voice emerged from the mirror. "Alright, fall back and provide support for the Repositories."

Jeff looked back at me and held up two fingers. I nodded. We stacked up against the corner, Jeff taking point. I reached out and slapped him twice on the shoulder. "Go."

And he slipped around the corner, deathly silent and swift. I was right behind him.

Adrenaline-fuelled clarity surged through my system, a hyperawareness that made colours pop, caused time to dilate, and allowed me to notice three important details.

One, the chopper had crashed into the front of the building, the tail assembly jammed halfway through the lobby's front windows. The rest of the Apache remained outside, the cockpit listing to one side. Two, something impossibly ornate and impossibly broken smouldered between us and the Apache, powder burns and shattered iron imbedded in adjacent surfaces. And three, two hostiles had taken refuge behind the receptionist's desk, facing the helicopter and presenting us an absolutely gorgeous view of their unguarded backs.

They never saw us coming. Jeff placed two rounds in his target's centre of mass, followed by a single round to the back of the head for good measure. I took the more direct approach and placed both my bullets into the target's skull.

"Clear."

"We've got company."

I glanced out the front windows into the exposed square funnelling into the lobby and spotted them, charging en masse directly toward our position. They were massive specimens, three and a half metres of muscle, fat, and leathery skin. Great carnivorous cavemen, essentially.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. Comparing trolls to Neanderthals would be doing the Neanderthal a disservice. What trolls lack in intelligence, they make up for in lack of intelligence. Case in point: charging into the teeth of automatic weapons across completely open territory whilst armed with clubs. This was what Darwin Awards were made for.

Shots rang out from the Apache's cockpit, downing one of the trolls.

I radioed it in. "Reaper Four, Ologs west of our position. Cover us while we extract the pilot."

The 'Hogs made another run; there wasn't much left after the Reapers were done.

Stepping through the lobby's shattered windows and hugging the building's wall, I edged toward the smoking remains of the downed Apache from its starboard side and tapped the metal plating behind the gunner's chair.

The pilot twisted around and found himself staring at the wrong end of my rifle. I held up four fingers.

Captain Hawke responded by throwing up two digits and lowered his MP7. "You guys SAR?"

I gave Jeff the all clear and turned back to the pilot. "More or less. How bad?"

"Crash broke both my legs. I've got no mobility, but otherwise, everything's fine."

"Alright, we're getting you out of here. Jeff, if you could..?"

Jeff, who had crept up next to me sometime during the conversation, muttered something about me and laziness. I raised an eyebrow. He shouldered his rifle.

"Hold on, hold on…" Hawke managed to get out before Jeff hauled him out of the cockpit. The pilot's words disappeared in a hiss of agony as his legs cleared the chopper. Slinging an arm over each of our shoulders, Jeff and I moved Hawke into the lobby. "Command, package secure. He has no mobility and we cannot make it to the extraction point. What's the ETA on ground support?"

"Sit tight. First Armoured's on their way."

I turned to Hawke. "Okay, First Armoured's coming to get us. We're going to set up a perimeter. In the mean time, watch our backs, yeah?"

We set the pilot by the lobby's rear entrance and Jeff swapped out the magazine on the pilot's MP7. "You're locked and loaded. We'd appreciate it if you could kill anything that comes in through those doors."

Hawke gave Jeff an odd look and nodded. "Wilco."

"Sierra, mixed enemy forces approaching from the west – son of a bitch! They've got Stingers – "

"We picked up a missile lock! Three, no, four missile launches detected!"

"Reaper Three, evasive manoeuvres!"

"Dammit, I can't shake it, I can't – "

A massive explosion rocked the building. I looked out the lobby windows just in time to see a single surface-to-air missile swat Reaper Three out of the sky.

Fuck. Despite their intrinsic distrust of technology, Oscar's got Vichies working in direct action roles.

Vichies. Humans who collaborated with Oscar. Traitorous little tosspots, the lot of them. Usually armed with outdated Eastern Bloc weaponry, they provided Oscar with information regarding our military hardware and tactics. For years, Vichies acted as support, relegated to logistics and educational roles; this was the first time we've seen the Vichies fielded in active combat.

"Command, be advised, we have Vichies – "

And then I saw the air around Reaper Four shimmer, an iridescent net coalescing around the fighter.

Sodding hell.

"Reaper Four, bug out! You've got – "

Too late. Multiple streaks of light filled the airspace around 'Hog. Reaper Four tried desperately to avoid the spell, pouring on speed, attempting to corkscrew up and away from the closing lattice. He didn't make it. A thin red line caressed the 'Hog's port wing and blew the fighter in half.

The MCDs lit up as the remnants of Reaper Four slammed into the city. "Enemy aeroplanes eliminated" – "About bloody time. Initiate _Eorthe Stormen_."

With a jaw-rattling roar, a pillar of light touched the sky, clouds gathering at its apex. As the layers of water vapour thickened, its properties changed. Soft wispy curves became unyielding lines, mist solidified into granite. The newly formed land mass rumbled three klicks above the city, straining against whatever forces held it aloft. Then the whole thing flared up, engulfing the giant slab of rock in flames.

"_Eorthe Stormen_ ready." - "Outpost One, take out the blood traitors."

Oh, God. Blood traitors. That means…

The flaming land mass dropped.

No time to be polite. "White Hat, get the f – "

"Say again, Sierra? You're breaking up."

"YOU'VE GOT A FUCKING METEORITE LOCKED ONTO YOUR LOCATION! GET OUT! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE, NOW!" I roared.

"Oh, sh – "

And the world disappeared in a roll of thunder, in clouds of dust, in tremors. Somewhere along the way I ended up on my back, staring at the cracked ceiling tiles. As the ringing in my ears faded, a cacophony of voices crashed over my earpiece.

"…White Hat, report!" – "They're gone, I repeat, they're gone" – "Contact! We've got multiple enemy contacts 'porting in" – "Watch your backs, they came from behind…"

White Hat was gone. My mind desperately tried to process that piece of information. If they were gone, then…

The anti-teleportation field was down. Oh, bugger me.

"Blood traitors down. All Death Eaters, Apparate to _Eorthe Stormen_ facilities and prepare for primary launch against targets New York, Moscow, and Shanghai. Hold _Eorthe Stormen_ facilities at all costs," the MCD blared.

Oh, things were just getting better and better.

I staggered to my feet just as a wizard warped in behind me with a deafening crack. Too close to swing the SPR up in time, too far away to stab with my knife. So I took a third option. My left hand dropped to the holster strapped to my thigh (seeing as how a rifle still occupied my right) and pulled the M1911 free. The muzzle blurred from the holster to the wizard's forehead, making contact with skin.

I pulled the trigger. The wizard collapsed, missing a good portion of his skull.

Something buzzed by my ear, producing a slight pop as it passed. I turned just in time to see the witch behind me fall, a bullet lodged in her head. I glared at Jeff's insufferable grin.

Another half dozen wizards appeared out of thin air.

One unlucky bastard teleported within arm's length of Jeff. Before Oscar could pull his wand, Jeff smashed in the poor fellow's face with the butt of his rifle and pounced on the bloodied wizard, unsheathing the knife attached to the small of his back. With a single precise motion, Jeff jammed the blade into the man's throat and dragged it a good four centimetres laterally.

Somewhere in the background, Hawke's MP7 began chattering in earnest.

"Command, we have three meteors targeted at New York, Moscow, and Shanghai – "

"Sierra, this is Shrike Ops. Be advised, there are two Rhinos approaching your position."

Oh, God. There's only three things you need to know about Erumpents, a.k.a. Rhinos. One, they're basically rhinoceroses on steroids. Two, they're immune to small arms fire. And three, they explode on contact.

"Command, we've got an arse load of incoming and two Rhinos locked on our location! What's the ETA on ground support?"

"Hold on, Sierra… deploying ICU Thirteen."

A cool female voice came over the com. "Portkeys activated."

I vaguely registered that last bit; I was a little busy dealing with the sudden influx of Oscar. I triggered two rounds at the nearest tango, only to have my bullets ricochet uselessly off an invisible force field.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. "Jeff, they're – "

I never saw it coming. One minute I'm handing out bullets like candy and the next thing I know, my legs and arms were irreversibly locked together. My balance compromised, I toppled to the floor, coming to a rest on my side, facing the lobby windows.

I watched helplessly as Jeff appeared in my field of vision, firing his M1911 one-handed at the approaching hostiles as he grabbed a fistful of my body armour and began dragging me to cover.

I watched helplessly as two erumpents stormed into the square, packed with enough exploding fluid to level the building. Ninety metres until impact.

Hawke's MP7 went silent.

Eighty metres.

I watched helplessly as Jeff took a spell to the left shoulder, slicing neatly through Kevlar and flesh.

Seventy.

I watched helplessly as Jeff barely dodged a second spell, turning his face at the last second. A shallow cut etched itself across his right cheekbone.

Sixty.

I watched helplessly as Jeff dropped me and the empty M1911, and engaged Oscar with his SPR, splashing rounds uselessly off Oscar's force field. Hey, it's the thought that counts.

Fifty.

"Warpath, firing primary."

"Brawl, missile away."

I watched helplessly as –

As, well, both Erumpents exploded fifty metres away, well shy of their target. That stopped the wizards in their tracks. Oscars One through Five took a horrified moment to gape at the demise of their heavies.

A fatal mistake.

A figure in black warped in silently behind Oscar One, and a blade, one of those Japanese ones, blossomed from the wizard's chest. Oscar Two thrust his wand toward the swordsman – and lost the arm. The second stroke entered Oscar Two's chin and exited his forehead. Oscar Three managed to twist around - just in time for Mr. Goth's sword to blur in the left temple and out the right. As Oscars Four and Five belatedly realized there was a new threat, the silenced USP in Mr. Goth's left hand flashed, inserting a single round into Oscar Four's temple and Oscar Five's left eye.

Ah. An Integrated Combat Unit. One of those White Hat/US Army experimental projects, mixing magic with modern warfare. In this case, an assault team comprised of wizards with DSAS-level training in firearms and tactics. Quite a combination, it seems.

The tension in my arms and legs eased, control returning to my appendages. I hauled myself off the floor –

Jeff and the swordsman rounded on each other, each person's firearm trained at the other.

"Five," the swordsman signed. All I could see were his eyes, cold and calculating behind the ballistic facemask.

"One," Jeff countersigned. He lowered the SPR. "We've – "

An awful, familiar roar interrupted Jeff. A single pillar of light burned toward the sky. "Oh bloody hell… Command, we have one – "

A second pillar emerged. "That's two! There are two – "

And a third. "We have three launches, I repeat, we have three in the air!"

"Roger that, Thirteen. Our satellites are tracking them now. Hold on… based on current trajectory, we have eight minutes until impact."

Another figure in black, this one with long auburn hair flowing out the back of her mask, appeared in the rear lobby entrance, reloading her M4A1. "_Eorthe Stormen_ control hub located. Brawl, Warpath, reset Portkey sequence. We're moving out."

"Wait a second, what about Hawke?"

She placed a hand on my shoulder. "He's gone. Come on, let's go," she said quietly.

_Goddammit_.

My radio crackled to life. "Sierra, proceed to Oscar control hub with ICU Thirteen and provide fire support. Take down Oscar's super weapon, whatever it takes."

Jeff, the swordsman, the redhead, and I sprinted from the building towards two armoured vehicles, an M1A2 Abrams (call sign Warpath) and an M3A2 Bradley (call sign Brawl).

"Copy that, Command."

The Bradley's loading ramp whined open, revealing a third figure in black, this one female and blond. She waved us in. "Come on, come on!"

My arse had barely touched the seat when Blondie told us, "Hold on to you knickers. Activating Portkey Brawl in three, two, one…"

Something insistent yanked at my stomach, an almighty tug that threatened to dislodge internal organs.

And then the pressure was gone, the infantry fighting vehicle dropping a couple of feet and rumbling over uneven terrain. The redhead cleared her throat and looked at the swordsman. "Arch, if you would?"

And reality faded in a white haze, a three-dimensional map of Bastogne and the surrounding countryside replacing the interior of the Bradley. A vision of some sort, a mental projection favoured by certain wizards.

"Alright, listen up. We have seven minutes to take out Oscar's command post, which is located here."

The hallucination zoomed in on an area not far from the city, a couple of klicks to the east. Oscar had erected the core of their super weapon in the field surrounding the skeletal remains of a primary school, allowing it direct access to the atmosphere.

"Enemy forces in the area are substantial, most likely a mix of wizards, zombies, and trolls. A large portion of them will be concentrated around the Shield generator, a magical artefact that's designed to protect the area against air strikes. That's our target."

A miniature representation of the Shield generator briefly pulsed.

"Missy here's demolitions." A miniature representation of the blonde appeared atop the Shield generator. "She'll wire up the Shield generator. The rest of us will cover her while she places the explosives. Brawl and Warpath will hold our exit vector open. When the Shield generator comes down, the flyboys raze the Repositories, and we all go home."

Oh. Great. Repositories. What the hell's a Repository?

Jeff, who was apparently psychic, asked, "What the hell's a Repository?"

What appeared to be three large fish tanks appeared on the map, each one housing a multitude of swirling lights.

"A Repository's a magical construct, one that pools and focuses the power of several wizards into a single spell, allowing spell casting on a larger scale. In this case, they're gathering energy from several Outposts, each one powering a massive Transfiguration spell called _Eorthe Stormen_. Water into wine, that kind of thing. You take out the Repository, the energy dissipates, the spell falls apart, rock reverts to air, everyone lives. Well, on our side anyways."

"What's our in?"

The map faded from view, the interior of the Bradley smoothly sliding in to take its place.

"Apparition." She pointed at the swordsman and me. "You guys are a shield pair until I create some cover." She gestured at herself and Jeff. "I'll be taking care of us. Remember, overlap the shields and screen Missy."

Brawl's commander cut in. "Thirteen, Sierra, we're in position. We'll hold this sector as long as we can. Good luck."

"Thanks, Brawl. We'll see you on the way back." The redhead slipped an arm through Jeff's. The swordsman placed a hand on my shoulder.

"This'll feel… a little strange," the redhead said.

Strange. That was an understatement.

An uncomfortable squeezing sensation wrapped around me, like I'd been strapped into a corset five sizes too small. There was a piercing crack… and a half dozen beams of light splashed off of the swordsman's shield array.

I managed to pop off a few rounds at the closing swarm before the redhead screamed "_Obstructus!_"

Several tons of rock erupted around us, large slabs at least a metre thick and three metres in height. The walls stopped the barrage of spells cold, giving us a moment to breathe. Well, most of us. The blonde held a hand up toward what I presumed was the Shield generator, palm facing the magical construct. It looked like a series of obelisks, seven of them placed in a circle with a ten-metre radius. Each individual column was intricately carved, a series of glowing runes spiralling up each pillar. The whole thing looked… well, somewhat tacky.

The blonde muttered something under her breath and packages emerged from thin air, floating before her in neat rows.

The wall behind me shattered in a storm of dust and shrapnel.

"How much longer?" the redhead roared over her thundering M4A1.

I slid closer to the swordsman, taking refuge behind his shield as his HK416 and my SPR unleashed a storm of bullets into the cloud of Oscar.

"Almost there… delivering packages."

Seven bouquets of wire and duct tape shot towards the Shield generator, one for each obelisk.

"Fire in the hole," the blonde informed us.

The resulting explosion tore through the stone columns, reducing years of hard work to powder.

The redhead keyed her throat mic. "Viper One, shield is down. Three targets, two hundred metres east of our position, arrayed in a triangle, spaced one hundred metres apart."

"Copy that, Thirteen. Making run."

A pair of F-15E Strike Eagles screamed over the horizon, a pair of GBU-27 Paveway IIIs detaching from their wings.

"_Obstructus!_" The redhead, again.

But this time it was a little different. The stone flowed up around the swordsman and me, completely enveloping us in layers of minerals and sediment.

Then the bombs hit.

A wave of heat and noise washed over me, the stone cocoon taking the brunt of the impact. The insistent ringing in my ears waxed and waned as voices once again crowded the com.

"Targets destroyed."

The barrier sluiced away, allowing me an absolutely gorgeous view of utter annihilation. All that remained of the Repositories was shattered glass and twisted metal. A good day's work, if I do say so myself.

"Meteors dissipating – "

"Negative, negative for impact on Target Three! One meteor is still in the air!"

"Thirteen, Sierra, enemy super weapon still active. Be advised, you have three minutes until impact."

Shit.

I peered through the smoke… and saw the remaining Repository. And the small army of Oscar dug in around the glass structure, at least thirty individuals dedicated to protecting the oversized fish tank. At least half their number had wands in the air, each contributing to the force field shielding the Repository. One that was apparently strong enough to shrug off the blast of two nine hundred kilogram bombs. Bugger.

An uncomfortable thrum blanketed the area. Lockdown protocol. No sodding teleportation. Wonderful. Way to come back and bite us in the arse.

The redhead cut loose with a very impressive four-letter blast. "Arch, shift. You're the initial strike. Kill the wizards maintaining the Shield. We'll be right behind you. Sierra, cover us. Command, are there air assets in our sector?"

I nodded. "Got it."

"Thirteen, this is Hydra. We're five klicks south of your location."

"Welcome aboard, Hydra. Fire on my mark."

"Wilco."

We didn't have time for anything fancy. The swordsman's outline blurred as his body went semi-tangible, a human wisp of smoke. Shifting, White Hat called it. A speed boost of some sort. He blasted towards the Repository, followed closely by the redhead and the blonde, the three of them weaving in and out of enemy fire.

I sighted in on a particularly energetic wizard, settling the crosshair just below his collarbone. I applied steady pressure on the trigger, squeezing just hard enough to fire the weapon. The wizard went down with a single incendiary to the chest.

"Two minutes."

And then ICU Thirteen was among them. Arch's sword flashed. A head rolled. Then the blonde laced the area with some sort of explosive spell and the whole thing devolved into a confused mess, the area lighting up as Oscar engaged our three allies. The three shifted forms crisscrossed among Oscar's ranks, taking down a wizard here, a wizard there. Jeff and I did our part, picking off individual hostile forces as three black streaks tore through Oscar's formation.

It wasn't enough. There were still too many left to fit into our time table.

"Thirteen, Sierra, you have one minute to – "

Another wizard went down, a single incendiary round burning in his skull. Bugger, there wasn't enough time to kill them all –

The redhead's voice crackled over the com. "Hydra, fire on our position. Twelve from the 40, one from the 105."

"Thirteen, be advised, you are not clear of the – "

"Goddammit, fire on our position! We don't have time!"

"Roger that, Thirteen. Firing."

And suddenly, the redhead and her team were streaking towards us, waving Jeff and me back from the Repository. "Incoming strike! Go, go, go! Get out of here!"

I felt a hand on my shoulder and Jeff nearly pulled me off my feet. My feet finally remembered to move on their own accord, and we went tearing away from the impending kill zone.

The AC-130 "Spooky" gunship, call sign Hydra, launched several 40mm shells from its L60 Bofors cannon, chased by a single 105mm shell from its M102 howitzer.

Oscar's shield, severely weakened from the number of casualties we inflicted, collapsed as the first 40mm rounds slammed into it. The rest of the 40s leaked through, decimating Oscar's ranks, ripping apart glass, concrete, and organic matter.

One of them landed too close.

Luckily for me, we were just outside the 40's effective range, escaping the pressure wave. Unluckily for me, a chunk of shrapnel slammed into my right leg, throwing me to my knees.

And heralded my doom; I was still too close to the target and, with my leg out of the picture, there was no way I was getting out before the 105 engulfed the entire area in heat and, well, more shrapnel. I looked up and saw Jeff pulling away. I allowed myself a little smile. Well, at least one of us had a chance.

He glanced over his shoulder.

And came back. "What the hell are you doing, you stupid wanker? Get out of here!" I roared.

"Oh, shut up." He unceremoniously flung me over his shoulder and…

I felt someone warping in behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder and…

We ran smack into something large and metallic, dumping Jeff and me on our arses. Ah, the Abrams. Which I knew was at least four klicks away from the target area. I looked around for a confused moment and spotted Hydra raining high explosives on Oscar operational command. Four klicks away. Apparently, Hydra had managed to target the wizards maintaining the anti-teleportation spell and ICU Thirteen had gotten us the hell out of there. Thank God for small miracles.

The 105mm shell hit with a measure of finality. The explosion blew away the top half of the Repository, releasing the cloud of light within. Each pinprick of light faded like sparks as the whole contraption shut down with an audible hum.

I looked to the sky as Oscar's last pillar of light faltered, fading to black. There was one question on everyone's mind: Oh, God, did we make it?

"Target Three destroyed."

"Command, Oscar super weapon destroyed. What's the status on the meteor?"

There was an unnecessarily long pause before Command reported, "Meteor is dissipating, I repeat, meteor is dissipating two klicks from target. No fallout – "

We never found out how he intended to finish that sentence; static drowned out his words as hundreds of voices erupted from the com. I couldn't make out the individual words; it was a voiceless roar universally recognized as relief and joy. There was a flurry of undignified behaviour among my comrades, and, somehow, I found my arms wrapped tightly around Jeff's neck. It took me a long while to notice an insistent tugging at my arms, trying to loosen my grip. "Uh, Torrie…"

Oh. Yeah. Right. I sheepishly released my hug and he sagged in relief, gingerly poking at the deep laceration gracing his left shoulder. "Come on, let's get out of here."

I tried standing. And failed as my leg collapsed underneath me. Jeff, who had gotten to his feet, held out a hand. I took it.

While Jeff pulled me into an upright position, I took in our new surroundings. Corpses littered the ground, a good cross-section of Oscar's forces represented among them. They were piled around Brawl's burned out hulk, the armoured vehicle reduced to smoke and scrap metal. Poor wankers; they gave as good as they got.

We hitched a ride back to base with Warpath while ICU Thirteen teleported to the Russian sector, where there were reports of high casualties due to the stalled advance. Crazy buggers. Eventually, we made it back into Bastogne and hooked up with First Armoured. For the most part, our part was over; a couple of weeks spent mopping pockets of Oscar resistance and Bastogne would be ours.

The first thing our buddies in First Armoured did was hoist Jeff and me on a couple of combat medics. "We're perfectly fine," we assured them. The medics took one look at us and had us hauled off to a field hospital. Jeff because his wounds were magical in nature and required a Healer to close. Me because the shrapnel got "a little cosy with my femoral artery." Apparently, another millimetre to the left and I'd have been another casualty for the papers.

We got shlepped to a medical facility in Dusseldorf. Upon arrival, I was stuck on a surgical slab. It was tricky but they managed to dig out that little piece of metal without cutting anything important. It took them thirteen hours, but I made it.

And Jeff? Well, due to the dark magic associated with his wounds, he lost a good bit of mobility and strength in his left arm. But he took it in stride; the doctors said time would restore a good deal of its functionality.

We spent a couple of weeks on our backs in Dusseldorf before restlessness took over. Three weeks before we were supposed to be discharged, we went AWOL. Jeff and I hitched a ride with an RAF C-17 back to the frontlines and hooked up with First Armoured in Bertrix, the staging ground for our next operation.

Because Bastogne was just the beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Azkaban

"Royal, we have a visual on target. ETA two minutes."

"Roger that, Serenity One-Seven. Prepare to deploy Fire Teams."

The loading ramp of our CV-22B Osprey whined open, revealing the turbulent waters of the North Sea. Captain Reynolds, our pilot, activated the Osprey's intercom. "All units, masks on. We drop in one."

I exchanged a look with Jeff before we pulled on our flash hoods and SF10s. This was going to be a bit… different from what we were used to. The two of us were currently attached to Task Force Phoenix, a joint White Hat/Coalition black operations unit whose members were drawn from Tier One outfits like the Yank's DEVGRU, the White Hat's Delta Alpha, and our DSAS. The task force fell under the command of an individual codenamed "Royal," former director of the White Hat's elite Delta Alpha unit. I've never actually met the man, but he had enough friends in high places to know who we were. When Jeff and I got off the plane in Bertrix, a member of Royal's staff was already waiting for us on the tarmac. He informed us that Sierra One November had been reassigned to Task Force Phoenix and that Royal had specifically requested the transfer based on our performance in Bastogne. We expressed some displeasure at being separated from our mates in First Armoured and accepted the transfer. Orders were orders.

Jeff and I were immediately transferred to Aalborg Air Base for a preliminary briefing. There, we got our hands on a course book's worth of classified information. Information that, upon reflection, I was happier not knowing.

To make a long story short, the White Hats were in trouble. Oscar had infiltrated a number of their Death Eater units into Coalition territory over the years; lead by a man whose name the White Hats refused to say out loud, these death squads were brutally efficient, indiscriminately butchering every magically-inclined man, woman, and child they could get their hands on. Coupled with combat-related losses, the White Hat population had dwindled sixty percent since the Death Eaters went active two years ago. If this trend continued, the White Hats would cease to exist as a viable military resource in eighteen months. And trust me, we depended heavily on magical support to fight this war; this was important enough to pull frontline units out of combat.

While there was no quick and dirty solution for dealing with the Death Eaters, we could temporarily alleviate the shortage of friendly wizards. Although the Second War (as the Hawks/Dovish conflict was known) did not end well for our allies, not all was lost. When the Hawks seized power, they initiated the Purges: all suspected members and sympathizers of the Dovish paramilitary structure were rounded up and "relocated" to an island in the North Sea, a maximum-security compound converted to hold prisoners of war.

They called the place Azkaban.

This prison was the stuff of nightmares, culled from the darkest corners of the human mind. The White Hats would only refer to it in half-whispers, speaking of Lovecraftian horrors that prowled its fetid halls. "Dementors," I believe they're called. According to the White Hats, they're humanoid monstrosities, three metres in height and clad in tattered black robes. Jeff and I had to take their word for it, though; Dementors are supposedly invisible to non-magicals. This was the primary reason Sniper Team Sierra had been expanded to form Fire Team Sierra One, a four person unit consisting of two non-magicals and two witches; Jeff and I needed someone to keep the Dementors off our backs during the prisoner extraction.

Prisoner extraction. That's what this operation was about: to free the Dovish incarcerated in Azkaban and bolster the White Hat's ranks. These prisoners had proper training in the art of war and, more importantly, experience fighting Oscar. And we needed all the help we could get. There were about three, four hundred Dovish ex-combatants mixed in with the prison's usual population of convicts; about ten thousand people, all told. Not including Oscar security forces, of course.

"Royal, this is Guillotine Eight-Five. Group A is in position for gun run."

"Roger that, Eight-Five. Group A, standby for strike."

"Acknowledged," Eight-Five answered. "Holding position."

"All units, prepare to drop," Reynolds transmitted.

The red light by the loading ramp lit up. There was a flurry of motion as One-Seven's full complement of six Fire Teams prepared to launch. I went through the familiar motions with my HK416 and sidearm: check safety, unload, test action, reload. Jeff did the same with his rifle, a custom M4 carbine chambered for the .50 Beowulf round.

Across the aisle, Avarice checked and rechecked her wand, carefully inspecting the thin piece of wood for cracks and going over incantations under her breath. Beside her, Pride meticulously examined and stored their equipment, magically fitting a small mountain of occult devices into a beaded bag the size of her fist.

Avarice and Pride. The two witches of Fire Team Sierra One. I didn't know their real names; everyone in Task Force Phoenix went by their call signs, a common quirk among Special Operations units (even Jeff and I didn't escape unscathed; the others knew us as Wrath and Lust, respectively… whoever assigned these things had a sense of humour). But it didn't really matter what their names were; after training with the women for a couple months, they were part of the family.

But that didn't mean they were easy to get along with.

On one hand, you had Pride, a proper English brunette in her late twenties or early thirties. She was quite lovely, someone who was intensely loyal, intelligent and grounded… well, she would have been lovely if she weren't quite so abrasively opinionated. God help you if you if you disagreed with her: she'd get on her high horse and bombard you with a storm of facts and passive aggressiveness.

On the other hand, you had Avarice, a blonde, in the same age bracket as Pride. Unlike Pride, who was appealing in a conventional sort of way, Avarice would be the "bad girl" if Sierra One was one of those manufactured pop groups. She never took anything seriously and was always willing to do something insane. Which was fine when she was flirting with the male members of Task Force Phoenix, but slightly less amusing when gravity and restraint were needed. Like, say, training sessions and combat situations.

Not that I could cast any stones, of course, based on my sordid past as one of Hollywood's vacuous starlets; I'm sure there's a special place in Hell reserved for me for starring in the film version of _My Immortal_.

Satisfied with the condition of her equipment, Avarice unfurled our EV, or Entry Vehicle. The EV was a thick piece of fabric, manufactured from alternating layers of Kevlar and Nomex with seatbelt-like harnesses lining each edge. A flying carpet. This was going to be a first for me.

She waved us over. "Come on, let's go."

The EV floated steadily as I strapped myself into the port harness, my legs hanging off the edge of the carpet. The others did as well, with Jeff occupying the starboard position while Pride and Avarice took the bow and stern positions.

The loading ramp's light turned green. "All Fire Teams, launch."

And the flying carpet leapt free of the Osprey's confines, rocketing into the fog-shrouded air above the North Sea. "Sierra One away," Avarice transmitted.

As Fire Teams Sierra Two through Six dropped from One-Seven, Avarice manoeuvred the EV to our designated holding position, slightly above and behind Eight-Five and the rest of Group A. Sierra Two through Six formed up behind us, all six flying carpets from One-Seven present and accounted for. Moments later, we were joined by Fire Teams from Serenity One-One (Alpha), Serenity One-Four (Echo), and Serenity One-Six (Juliet). Alpha One's EV pulled up beside us briefly, stopping a metre away. One of their White Hats, a bloke with untidy black hair and glasses, nodded briefly at Pride. "We'll get them back," he said.

Pride gave him a little smile. "I know."

And Alpha One was gone, fading back into formation.

"Who's your friend?" I asked, glancing back at Alpha One's EV.

Someone with an American accent came over the comm before Pride could answer. "Royal, this is Nucleus. KeyHole has achieved geosynchronous orbit and is in position. Thermal optics are online."

"Copy that, Nucleus."

"Royal, this is Alpha One. Fire Teams on station. We have a visual on the target."

My eyes swept from our assembled force to the horizon – there. I picked out the island through the mist. It was a tiny little thing, as far as islands went, with just enough room for a single tower and a small graveyard. Azkaban was a blocky sort of building, supposedly built out of iron and definitely the ugliest building I've ever seen.

According to Pride, it was a miracle Jeff and I could see it at all. Azkaban's countermeasures included Unplottability (at least, I think that's what Pride said, I'm not sure) and invisibility to non-magicals. Or it did, before Pride and her team of White Hats took a crack at it. She assured us it took a fair amount of ingenuity and long hours to brew up a potion that could nullify Azkaban's passive defences. Some rubbish about wormwood and wolfsbane. Not something Jeff and I would understand, no matter how many times she impatiently repeated it. But every non-magical in Task Force Phoenix was required to take a shot of the stuff during the flight in, and it seemed like it was working.

"Copy, Alpha One, standby. Group A, action, action, action."

Nucleus came back on the line. "Maverick One-One, be advised, satellite's picking up six active ballista sites in the sector. Targets painted. You are cleared hot."

Ballistae. Oscar's answer to our SAMs (surface to air missiles), ballistae were essentially giant crossbows loaded with explosive-tipped arrows. Looked like Oscar had finally realized the importance of air superiority and taken great pains to create a primitive anti-air network.

Emphasis on primitive. While the ballistae had a magically enhanced kill zone, they couldn't quite match the eight-klick operational range of our air to ground missiles.

"Copy that, Nucleus, targets illuminated. Dedicating two JAGMs per site. Rifle, rifle, rifle."

A flight of six F-35C Lightning IIs screamed by overhead, each releasing a pair of Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles. The JAGMs dropped five metres before the boosters kicked in and the munitions went supersonic. Locked onto the laser designator of Nucleus' Key Hole recon satellite, the twelve missiles curved up, climbing into the sky to a height of thirteen klicks before accelerating straight down into their designated targets.

"Ripple complete."

"Solid kill, Maverick One-One. Satellite feed shows six ballistae destroyed. Guillotine Eight-Five, your flight is clear for gun run."

"Eight-Five copies."

"Eight-Six, activating thermal optics."

"Eight-Seven acknowledges."

"Eight-Eight, following hot."

Guillotine Eight-Five and her sisters, a flight of four USMC AH-1Z Vipers, swept in on the target building.

"Thermal's picking up clusters of Ringwraiths near the south and northwest walls of the structure," Eight-Five transmitted.

Yes, we non-magicals can't see Dementors with the naked eye, but goddamn if they don't pop beautifully on a black-hot thermal scope. See, Dementors (or Ringwraiths, as the flyboys liked to call them) have a unique biological property: their average body temperature is colder than a witch's tit. Their presence alone causes the ambient temperature to drop and ice crystals to form on everything in their general vicinity. On black-hot thermal scopes, they showed up as brilliant white dots, easily visible to our air support.

"Alpha check, Eight-Five, Ringwraiths in the vicinity of the tower. Dialling in distance."

"Roger that, Eight-Six," Eight-Five said. "Fire on my mark. Three, two, one, mark."

The two Vipers, each with two LAU-61C/A rocket pods mounted on each wing stub, ripple fired their complement of WAFARs, putting one hundred fifty two Hydra 70 airburst rockets down range in four seconds. When the rockets reached the pilot-programmed distance, they exploded, saturating the entire area with its payload of liquid serotonin and flechettes.

Oh yes, that's the other thing about Ringwraiths: they're biological factories specializing in the production of misery and despair. Dementors naturally secrete some sort of depression-inducing pheromone, a foggy substance that, when inhaled, suppresses serotonin levels in human beings. This was the reason for the SF10 masks: to filter out and neutralize the pheromones.

The White Hats have a spell dedicated to the Ringwraith problem, a spell that produces a silvery mist that has an area denial effect against the Dementors. Pride called it a "Patronus," explaining that it was a physical manifestation of positive thoughts, emotions, and memories. Whatever it was, our scientists took the basic idea behind the Patronus spell and ran with it. What's a major ingredient of happiness? Serotonin. So a genius somewhere put two and two together, packed liquid serotonin into a warhead, and voila, the Patronus munition was born.

And they worked like a charm. I couldn't see the results, but Avarice's look of awe was all the confirmation I needed.

Eight-Five got back on the horn. "Ringwraiths bugging out."

"Solid copy, Eight-Five. Eight-Seven, going in hot. Guns, guns."

Unlike the two previously mentioned Vipers, Eight-Seven and Eight-Eight were packing GAU-19 gun pods, one under each wing. The miniguns spun up, delivering two thousand rounds per minute as both attack helis strafed the building, lacing the northwest wall of Azkaban with six thousand .50 calibre shells.

"Target building suppressed. Fire Teams, you are clear for entry."

That was our cue.

"Alpha One acknowledges. Fire Teams are Oscar Mike."

Avarice kicked our EV into high gear; without the harness, I would have been blasted out of my seat. We followed Alpha One's lead as all Fire Teams angled in on Azkaban's perforated northwest bulwark.

"Five…four…three…" Pride nervously muttered to herself.

"_EXUPLSO!_" Avarice roared as we got within fifty metres of the target building. A single streak of light lanced from her wand and struck Azkaban's wall.

The iron, already weakened by Eight-Seven's gun run, exploded in a shower of debris, creating a hole four metres across. I triggered the M203 grenade launcher mounted under my assault rifle, dumping a single 40mm flashbang into the gap. I averted my eyes as the grenade detonated with one million candela of luminous intensity and 180 dB of percussive force.

"…Two…One…"

And our EV blew in through the opening, inserting directly into –

One of Azkaban's guard quarters. One of Azkaban's _occupied_ guard quarters.

Granted, after Eight-Seven's strafing run, about half of the occupants were dead or dying. Fifty calibre rounds tend to have that effect on people. The rest, about thirty Oscars, were temporarily blinded from my flashbang.

We had six seconds before they recovered.

"Contact," Jeff said calmly as he opened fire into the confused mess, one measured shot at a time.

Oscar, three o'clock. Judging by his pyjamas and the drowsy look of surprise on his face, we'd caught the night shift in the middle of their sleep cycle. I fired a burst into his centre mass, three rounds perforating his torso. "Engaging," I said as I hit the quick-release button on my harness.

I gently dropped to one knee and lined up another Oscar –

And the area around me lit up in an orgy of light, flashes of green, red and purple impacting around us.

"SHIELD SHIELD SHIELD!" Avarice roared as her wand unleashed a torrent of sentient fire.

"_Protego!_" Pride cast as Avarice's fire coalesced into a serpent, a monstrosity five metres in length. As Pride's invisible force field sprang up around us, the snake whipped around the room at ghastly speeds, reducing metal and organic matter into piles of ash. By the time Avarice cut the spell, all that was left was an empty room and a lot of smoke. Good thing we had our masks on.

"Room clear," Avarice said, rather unnecessarily.

Pride peeked out the door and immediately pulled back as a streak of green light smashed into the doorframe. "Contact, corridor west! Mixed Oscar/Dementors!"

Jeff pulled a fragmentation grenade from his chest rig and pulled the pin. "Think you can take care of the Ringwraiths for us?" he asked Pride.

"With pleasure. _Expecto Patronum!_" A silvery otter emerged from the tip of Pride's wand, an absurdly cute little thing that raced through the doorway and into the hall beyond.

"Frag out." Jeff added his grenade to the mix, flinging it through the doorway. It bounced off the opposite wall and skittered down the hall before detonating. The explosion peppered the corridor with jagged bits of metal, the walls amplifying the shockwave and extending the grenade's kill radius. We hunkered down as some of the blast dissipated through the doorway, throwing in a fine cloud of dust and noise.

Before the dust could properly settle, Jeff burst into the corridor, his assault rifle roaring. Pride and I followed him in, stepping over bodies and picking out targets through the smoke.

Oscar, to my left, curled in a ball, whimpering. He got two rounds in the head. Another, wounded, trying to crawl away on shattered legs. I fired a single burst into her chest. "How much further?" I asked, executing another semi-coherent Oscar.

"Not far!" Pride shouted over the gunfire. "Cellblock Four's – "

An impossibly loud voice shook the prison, cutting her off. "CODE ORANGE, CODE ORANGE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. DEFENSIVE MEASURES ACTIVE. ALL PERSONNEL, REPORT TO EMERGENCY STATIONS."

And the corridor in front of us just…vanished, replaced by a blank iron wall. Avarice threw some sort of explosive spell at it – which got reflected and almost took her head off. The spell detonated somewhere behind us, showering us with specks of iron.

"Bollocks!" Avarice kicked the wall in frustration.

I keyed my mic. "Royal, this is Sierra One. Interrogative: is there a secondary route to the objective? Our primary route has been compromised. We're in Sector Hotel Three, Corridor two three seven."

"Sierra One, confirm your location. Sector Hotel Three, Corridor two three seven."

"Affirmative."

A new voice said, "Sierra One, this is Padfoot. I have your position. Hold on."

Padfoot. The only known wizard in history to escape Azkaban. While no one knows exactly how he pulled it off, we do know he created a map to facilitate his getaway. It was a magical sort of thing, a complete blueprint of Azkaban that plotted out every square centimetre of the compound and logged the name and whereabouts of every single individual within the building. It was as if all persons inside the structure had been tagged with a GPS tracker; the chart allowed Royal and his command staff a bird's eye view of the operation. Padfoot called it the Marauder's Map Mk. 2.

He came back on the comm. "You need to go back to the barracks. Below that is one of the dining halls. You'll need to make a hole and abseil in."

I nodded. "Got it."

We backtracked to the empty guard's quarters and Avarice taped down several loops of Primacord in a circular pattern, two metres in diameter. While Avarice was busy playing with her explosives, Pride helped Jeff and me phase our anchors into the prison wall. As soon as she was finished, Jeff removed two lengths of Kernmantle rope from his pack and fastened them to the anchors, pulling each line a couple times to make sure they were secure. He turned to Avarice. "We're good to go."

She nodded. "Fire in the hole."

A minor explosion knifed through the floor, creating a makeshift entrance to the dining hall below.

The dining hall was a rather spacious affair, a four-storey tall space designed to hold fifteen hundred occupants comfortably. Heavy tables and benches covered the floor below, arranged in neat rows. Small alcoves lined the walls, observation posts designed to give Azkaban's guards the best possible field of fire on the prisoners below. Thankfully, at this point in the day, the room was unoccupied.

I pulled the pin on a flashbang and dumped it into the room below. "Flash out."

The grenade dropped sixteen metres, clattered off a solid wooden table, and detonated.

Avarice muttered something under her breath, wand pointed at her legs. And she leapt through the hole. No rope, no harness, nothing. She simply dropped four stories and landed with an almighty crash, a series of cracks spiderwebbing from the point of contact. In one swift movement, she straightened and brought her wand up, aiming at something I couldn't see. "_Expecto Patronum!_"

As Avarice's silver phoenix went flying out of my field of vision, Pride stepped into the abyss. She dropped twelve metres before slowing her descent with some sort of spell, floating the last four metres to the dining hall's floor. Pride touched down gently and unleashed her own Patronus.

And then it was my turn. I shouldered my rifle, clipped one of the Kernmantle lines to my combat webbing, took a deep breath, and allowed gravity to do its work. I pulled the Munter hitch as I approached the canteen floor, allowing my feet to gently touch the –

"Oh, damn. Sierra One, you've got incoming –"

I didn't hear the rest of Padfoot's warning; an ear-splitting crash echoed through the room as the dining hall's double doors disappeared in a hail of splinters.

Avarice, who was closest to the disturbance, recognized the threat. "Contact, contact! Trolls!"

An endless stream of them poured in through the shattered doors, charging directly at us. Avarice back-pedalled away from the frothing pack of club-wielding carnivores, streaks of light flying from her wand. Green flashes struck down three, four trolls; momentum carried them forward a couple of steps before they collapsed.

But they kept on coming.

Behind me, Pride screamed something at the approaching wall of brute force and unrestrained violence. One of the Ologs stiffened, going incredibly still. White tufts of wool sprouted all over its body as the troll shrank, going from four metres to one in a matter of seconds. I felt kind of bad for the creature; one moment you're a large fucking troll with a large fucking club, the next you're a little lamb with fleece as white as snow. There's some bloody insane magic out there.

But they kept on coming.

A rifle roared overhead as Jeff, hanging ten metres above me, opened up on the Ologs. One troll went down, half its face missing. Another clawed feebly at its throat, wheezing through an obliterated windpipe.

But they kept on coming.

I reached down to the small of my back, slipping my finger through the top loop of my karambit. Placing the blade just above the karabiner, I tore through the Kernmantle line with a single, savage motion. As the rope dropped away, I drew the M1911 from my tactical thigh rig and stabilized the barrel.

The closest troll caught a .45 between the legs. Clutching at the tattered remains of his pelvic region, the creature sank to his knees, a pathetic whimper emerging from its throat.

Their advance faltered.

Avarice violently seized this opportunity; she made a cutting motion with her wand, whipping the point in a wide arch in front of her. Every single shadow caught within that arch seemed to solidify and boil, each a writhing pool of tangible darkness. Before the trolls could react, bladed tendrils erupted from their shadows, arching up over their heads before slamming back to the floor, slicing cleanly through flesh and bone.

The brutality of Avarice's spell bought us some space, creating a gap in the troll's momentum. A gap that Jeff and I filled with hollowpoints. Nothing brings a reckless charge across open territory to a screeching halt like automatic weapons. Avarice and Pride jumped in a few seconds later, adding their magic to the carnage, driving the trolls back out the shattered doorway and into the corridor beyond. Avarice growled something and a steel portcullis blinked into existence, slamming into place between our squishy bodies and their sharp teeth.

"Padfoot, we need an exit, now!" I said as Jeff landed gently next to me, rifle trained on the howling mob outside.

Padfoot came back on the comm. "Afraid I've got a bit of bad news, Sierra One: there's only one way out of that dining hall."

"Through the trolls?" Jeff asked, a hopeful gleam in his eye.

"Through the trolls," Padfoot confirmed. "Two dozen of them."

"Of course." I sighed. Well, that was a problem. How the hell –

"Oh, where are they?"

I turned to find Pride rummaging through her beaded handbag. Completely defying the laws of reality, the small bag proceeded to swallow her hand, her wrist and most of her forearm.

"Here, take these." Pride pulled her arm free of the purse and tossed us each a dried human hand and a candle.

Assembling the Hand Torch (or Hand of Glory, as it was properly called) was easy enough: insert candle into severed appendage, attach severed appendage to custom bracket, mount finished product on right Picatinny rail of assault rifle.

"Darkness?" I asked, loading a fresh magazine into my HK416.

Pride nodded and produced a small glass vial filled with black powder. "Darkness."

She nonchalantly dropped the vial and crushed it beneath her heel. Tentacles of black fog, no longer confined by the glass, erupted from the ruptured vessel.

And everything went black as the Darkness Powder filled my eyes with shadows.

But not for long.

"_Incendio_."

The Hand of Glory mounted on my rifle blazed to life, burning through the gloom. Three other candles flared up around me, bathing the area in a soft orange glow.

Pride glanced at Avarice and gestured at the portcullis. "If you would?"

"Hmmm? Ah, yes."

The latticed grille separating us from the horde vanished.

And we hit that corridor like it was another day at the kill house.

The trolls were trapped in an enclosed location, blind, with no cover. Target practice. As they groped about in the dark, our team stalked down the hall and systematically exterminated every single living thing we could find in that corridor. I counted twenty-three corpses as the Darkness Powder dissipated.

Wait. Twenty-three.

Oh, fu –

A mace the size of a telegraph pole appeared out of nowhere and damn near took my head off. I didn't escape entirely unscathed; one of the spikes caught my SF10, ripping the gas mask from my face and dumping me unceremoniously on my back.

A tightness clutched my chest, constricting my heart and pushing it up into my throat. Breaths came shallow and hard, the oxygen not quite reaching my lungs. My vision blurred as tears flooded my eyes, rolled down the sides of my face, and froze before they reached my ears. A spider-like chill crawled up my spine and seized my limbs, wrestling away all motor control. A single voice slithered through my mind, brushing aside all rational thought. _Oh, you're a pretty one, aren't you?_ the voice whispered in my ear. _Don't worry, honey, this won't hurt much._

No. No. Not this.

Gasping, I turned my face slightly. The air beside me rippled as the troll emerged completely from an invisibility field and charged Jeff's position.

"I've got this one! Help her!" Jeff roared, the barrel of his rifle already tracking the Olog.

Pride's wand whipped up and pointed directly at the airspace above me. "_Expecto – _"

Before she could finish the spell, a flash of light lanced from the invisibility field next to me and disintegrated Jeff's firearm. Five figures in black erupted from the spatial distortion and swarmed the White Hats, saturating the air with light and fire.

_Hush now, we don't want anyone to see us, do we? This will be our little secret._

Forced back to back, Pride and Avarice desperately tried to weather the storm of curses, frantically raising force fields and barely evading the spells that leaked through. Delaying the inevitable.

_Easy, sweetheart, I know you don't really want to hurt me. Tsk. Stop that. That wasn't very nice. You don't want to make me angry, do you?_

The troll aimed a crushing blow at Jeff's chest, a blow that narrowly missed as Jeff back-pedalled away from the hulking monstrosity. He wasn't fast enough. As Jeff ripped the M1911 from his holster, the troll backhanded him three metres into the corridor wall. Jeff lost the M1911 as he slammed into the wall, the impact driving the pistol well out of reach.

_Now be a good little girl and behave._

Jeff pushed himself to his feet, one hand reaching for the KM2000 sheathed at the small of his back. He shot the troll a hard little smile as he drew the blade. "Torrie, get up. You're going to miss this."

Those words inspired a weak chuckle and some measure of warmth pushed against the coldness gripping my body. The warmth wound itself up through my core and settled somewhere in my brain.

I felt a small surge of anger.

No. No more. I would not behave.

"H-how m-m-many Ringwr-wraiths?" I called out (or rather, croaked loudly).

"Little…busy…here…" Avarice managed to grit out as a deluge of spells blew apart yet another one of her shields.

"How-how many?" I persisted.

"One," she answered as she ignited the air around her, burning Oscar's swarm of locusts out of the sky.

"Wh-where is i-it?"

"Eat this, you bastard." Electricity exploded from Avarice's wand, lashing out at the nearest tango. "Right above you."

I reached out with a shaking hand, groping blindly about until I felt something solid brush my fingers. Latching on to what felt like a handful of cloth, I yanked down with all the strength I could muster, pulling the Dementor in close. And I did what I did to the man who whispered those things in my ear all those years ago: I jammed the business end of my sidearm into the invisible mass and emptied the magazine.

There was a horrible sort of screech and the presence above me vanished in a gust of wind. Shaking my head and brushing some of the cobwebs out of my mind, I unconsciously slapped a fresh magazine into my M1911. Force of habit.

Oscar took no notice of the shaken blonde who staggered to her feet, wiping away the tears frosting her eyes.

Fatal mistake.

I levelled my sidearm at the closest Oscar and planted two .45s in the poor sod's back. He crumpled with nary a sound, like a marionette with its strings cut. I managed to double tap one more wizard before the others realized there was a new player in the game. The three remaining Oscars turned on me.

It was the opportunity Pride was waiting for. "_Obliviate!_"

Her target went still for a moment, a blank look crossing his face. Before anyone could do anything, I put two in his chest, one in his head.

Avarice was a bit more efficient than Pride and simply lit the other two up with flashes of green.

Which left the troll. I whipped my sidearm around –

The creature was on its knees, barely conscious and bleeding from a dozen different wounds; any point where a knife could access a major artery, Jeff had exploited ruthlessly. As I watched, he nonchalantly flipped the KM2000 into a reverse grip and planted the blade in the troll's right temple.

As the Olog collapsed, Jeff turned to retrieve his sidearm and caught the three of us staring. "What?"

Shaking my head, I muttered, "Show off," softening the words with a smile.

He grinned. "Oh, shut up and eat your chocolate."

Jeff tossed me a chocolate bar. I caught it and rolled my eyes. "Yes, mother." I wolfed down the bar in three bites.

"Padfoot, corridor clear," Pride transmitted as she absently picked up my SF10 and tapped it a few times with her wand. Giving it one last cursory check, she handed the mask back to me, fully repaired.

"Thanks." I pushed my long blonde hair back into my flash hood and pulled the SF10 back on.

"Copy, Sierra One. Take the stairs at the end of the corridor. Objective is one level above you, four guards on duty."

Pride led the way down the corridor and up the stairs, a subtle new spring in her step. Interesting.

Located at the top of the staircase was a heavy iron door, labelled "IV."

I turned to Avarice. "Breaching char – "

Padfoot interrupted me. "Hold on, Sierra One. The guards just disappeared. What is - oh, damn, do not –"

An explosion rocked the door, blowing it off its hinges. The heavy slab of iron took flight, almost decapitating me before embedding in the wall behind us. Four Oscars clad in tattered black and white stripes rushed the ruined doorway, wands glowing. Before they could clear the threshold, I had my rifle up and stabilized, tracking a lanky tosser with fiery red hair. Jeff, slightly quicker on the draw than I was, had his sidearm trained on a woman, her long hair a matching shade of ginger. Siblings, if I had to hazard a guess. For some reason, they seemed oddly... familiar.

I gently squeezed the –

" – not fire, I repeat, do not fire, friendlies in the area!"

I finally registered Padfoot's words and my finger twitched off the trigger. Everyone froze, a contagious look of recognition spreading from face to face.

We all sort of stared at each other for a few seconds before my target lowered his wand. "Hermione?"

"Ron?" Pride whispered.

He hit her at a dead run and wrapped her up in a hug, nearly knocking her over. Their lips met and she closed her eyes, savouring the moment, oblivious to the world around her.

Ah. That's why they looked familiar. I turned to the other redhead and asked, "Ginevra Weasley?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

"The extraction team." I produced a laminated card from one of my pockets and handed it to her. It was a list of fifteen names and mugshots, the prisoners we were supposed to evacuate from Cellblock Four. "You're on the list."

Ginevra scanned the list and shook her head. "No, we're not leaving without the others."

"Others? What others?"

She studied me for a few moments. "I'll show you."

And she led Jeff and me through the shattered doorway into Cellblock Four.

According to Padfoot's map, Cellblock Four was comprised of two sections. The first was a security checkpoint, the sole point of contact between the cellblock and the rest of Azkaban. The checkpoint's primary function was to serve as a chokepoint, giving the prisoners one heavily guarded avenue of escape. Composed of a guard station and a series of barricades, the room was designed to be solid and intimidating, supposedly able to withstand the might of a prison riot.

Supposedly.

Four prisoners had put that statement to the test and the checkpoint was found wanting. The barricades were a twisted mess, as if something had melted its way through the metal bars. The guard station itself had been obliterated, a charred jumble of broken glass and shattered stone. Four bodies lined the floor, each stripped of his wand.

As Ron and Pride finally broke their kiss and joined us, Avarice asked the question on everyone's mind. "How the hell did you manage to do this?"

One of the prisoners, a battered looking fellow with a round face, shrugged. "One of the prisoners is quarter-Veela. What's-her-name… the French girl."

Ginevra scowled. "Phlegm."

"Fleur," Ron corrected absently.

Round Face nodded. "Right. Fleur. Ollivander improvised and used some of her hair to make a few wands. Went through damn near every bed frame we had before he found the right kind of wood. Doesn't work as well as the real thing, of course. Only good for one curse."

"Neville made it count," said the last prisoner, a rather attractive Asian woman, gesturing at the guard station. "You should've seen him; I'm not sure I could've gotten the curse out that quickly."

Neville grinned briefly and gave his wand an absent twirl. "Thanks, Cho. Still, it feels good to be holding a proper wand again."

We halted before the checkpoint's exit, just beyond the destroyed guard station. The door, surprisingly intact, was shut, its edges melted into the surrounding walls. Presumably to protect the other inmates from stray combat spells. Neville turned to Ginevra. "Ginny, if you could?"

Ginny pointed her wand at the door and traced its outline. There was an odd _crack_ as the door separated from the frame. Pocketing her wand, Ginny pushed her way into the room beyond. "You can all come out now, I brought friends."

I followed her into Cellblock Four's second section, the prisoners' "living quarters." Much like the dining hall, this room proved to be rather vast; its walls seemed to zoom up and away from me. Tiers of cells, five stories worth, bordered the cavernous room, hemming in a courtyard the size of a football field. As I scanned the area for threats, I noticed that the cells lacked any means of actually detaining their occupants; locks and bars, the usual hallmarks of prison, were mysteriously missing.

A thousand odd prisoners emerged from their cells and peered into the courtyard at us.

I stopped in my tracks. Oh, fuck me. "Royal, we have a problem."

Two little boys, clad in the same black and white stripes as Ginny, cautiously approached and gave me timid smiles. God, they couldn't be more than six or seven. "Be advised, they aren't holding convicts here, I repeat, they aren't holding convicts here. They're holding civilians. Families."

I pushed the SF10 off my face and left it perched on my forehead as I slipped a hand into one of the pouches on my combat webbing. I withdrew a chocolate bar, breaking it in half and tearing open the foil wrapper. I held out the confectionery in my left palm, giving the children a clear look. They ran up to me, taking the candy out of my hand. One of the boys latched on to my hand as he more or less inhaled the chocolate.

At this point, the other children descended on our position, laughing, asking if we had any more sweets. I directed them to Jeff. As he handed out his supply of chocolate, I got back on the comm. "Royal, Cellblock Four secure. What are we going to do about the civilians? We can't leave them behind."

"Roger that, Sierra One, Azkaban has been locked down. We're getting similar reports from the other Fire Teams. Hold for further orders."

Jeff joined me as I waited for the command staff's decision, a little girl perched on his shoulders. "Avarice and Pride are activating the Portkeys."

I turned and saw the two witches modifying fifteen specially prepared adhesive bandages, giving each strip a tap with their wands. Adhesive Portkeys were quite popular among members of Task Force Phoenix, primarily due to their versatility. Easy to carry, easy to conceal, and easy to place on subjects. Doesn't matter if said subject was conscious or unconscious, willing or unwilling, aware or unaware of the Portkey's presence; whatever state he/she was in, the subject would be transported to our destination of choice. Hell, they even circumvent anti-teleportation fields, perfect for snatch and grab operations.

If only they didn't take so damned long to make. While changing the destination and departure time of a Portkey is a relatively simple task, actually creating the Portkey takes at least one or two months. Coupled with the White Hat's casualty rate, the long production time meant supply simply could not keep up with demand. So, rationing had been instated, and each Fire Team carried just enough to evacuate the prisoners on their list.

The little girl on Jeff's shoulders looked at me and said, "She's pretty. Why are you two dressed the same? Are you married?"

Jeff laughed. "She wishes."

I punched him lightly on the shoulder. The girl giggled.

"He's – "

My comm lit up. "Ground teams, this is Royal. Commence evacuation of all civilians from the target area. All Sierra elements, obtain Portkeys from Sentinel One for distribution. One-Six and One-Seven are standing by for pick up."

"Sierra One, this is Alpha One. Heading toward your position. We'll watch your sector while you're gone."

"Copy that." Jeff set the girl down gently. "Sorry, back to work."

She nodded happily and ran back into the crowd of prisoners.

Avarice, never one to sit still, began preparing our exit point while we waited for Alpha One. Locating a barred window facing the North Sea, she transformed the surrounding wall into sand. As the window crumbled away, a single voice drifted in from the cellblock entrance, "Flash."

"Thunder," Pride called out.

"Storm." The other voice answered, giving the correct countersign. "Coming in."

Pride, closest to the door, greeted the members of Fire Team Alpha One as they filed in, saving a hug for the bespectacled fellow she spoke to earlier. "There's someone waiting for you, Harry."

Avarice unrolled our EV and cut Pride's reunion short. "Come on, we're moving out."

Pride took a few seconds to share a few words and a kiss with Ron before joining us as we strapped into the EV.

A soldier from Alpha One, a Yank belonging to 1st SFOD-D according to his unit patch, slapped me on the shoulder and said, "Make it fast so we can get the hell out of here."

"Wilco."

And our EV leapt free of the iron walls, accelerating out to sea. "Sierra One outbound."

Teams Sierra Two through Six launched shortly after we did, stringing out behind us. As we passed the one-klick mark, Serenity One-Seven swooped down in front of us, her cargo ramp lowered. Avarice performed a midair transfer into the Osprey, flying the EV directly into One-Seven's cargo hold. Sierra Two and Sierra Three were right behind us.

Why the Ospreys? Well, mainly for IFF purposes. Designed to be small and portable, our EVs did not carry IFF transponders, the primary method used by military forces to identify friendly/unfriendly units. Coupled with the fact that combat air patrols had standing shoot-down orders on all magically operated devices, approaching friendly air space without proper identification on a flying carpet would probably be a lethal experience. Boarding Serenity One-Seven was a simple and elegant solution to that problem.

I extricated myself from the EV and headed up to the cockpit as Sierra Two and Sierra Three touched down. "Sentinel One, Serenity One-Six and One-Seven are on approach," Captain Reynolds said as I entered.

"Copy, One-Seven. Both of you are cleared to land on the _Somerset_."

I glanced over Reynold's shoulder as the Opsrey banked, watching Sentinel One crest the horizon.

Task Unit 113.8.1, callsign Sentinel One, was the escort carrier group assigned to this operation. The core of the group consisted of three British Royal Navy _Invincible_ class aircraft carriers (the HMS _Illustrious_, the HMS _Ark Royal_, and the HMS _Indomitable_) and three US Navy _San Antonio_ class LPDs (the USS _New Orleans_, the USS _Alrington_, and the USS _Somerset_). These six vessels were the source of our air support, carrying a mixed force of Lightning IIs, Harrier IIs, and Vipers. Screening the carriers and LPDs were three _Oliver Hazard Perry_ class frigates (the USS _Underwood_, the USS _Ingraham_, the USS _Vandergrift_) and four _Arleigh Burke_ class destroyers (the USS _Sampson_, the USS _Decatur_, the USS _Gravely_, and the USS _Stockdale _).

Our Osprey flared over the USS _Somerset_, Captain Reynolds bringing the aircraft in for a gentle landing on the LPD's flight deck. "Thanks for the lift," I said, clapping him on the shoulder.

He waved me off. "Get out of here. Cargo's waiting on the tarmac."

Cargo turned out to be a series of cardboard containers stacked neatly on the deck. Jeff already had one of the boxes up on his shoulder when I exited the Osprey. "There you are. Get your lazy arse over here and give us a hand. We're loading One-Six."

I bristled. "I am _not_ – "

"Contact, contact! We've got multiple contacts approaching our position, bearing – "

"Confirm, scope's picking up twenty three new – "

"Vessels surfacing off the port bow!"

What the hell…? I ran down the Osprey's ramp and –

Forty klicks away, the North Sea erupted in sheets of grey and white as ships breached its surface. Four monstrous shapes emerged from the spray, the largest of which easily out- massed our carriers five times over. The three others, while not quite as massive, obviously belonged to the same weight class.

Dreadnoughts. Colossal steam powered ships-of-the-line whose main guns were so massive that they required a gun crew of giants to operate properly. They were designed for one thing and one thing only: superior firepower. The four dreadnoughts (designated Sovereign One through Four by the fire control officer) bristled with magically augmented cannons, outgunning our entire fleet combined. And they were not alone. Screening the four dreadnoughts were eight battleship analogues (Basestar One through Eight) and eleven heavy cruiser analogues (Sulaco One through Eleven).

"Merlin's beard," Avarice breathed. "That's their main Atlantic battle group."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The North Sea

There were eight bass thumps from the largest dreadnought, Sovereign One, as she fired her main guns. Eight high explosive shells splashed down around the _Stockdale_ as the dreadnought completed its range-finding volley. "Vampire, vampire! We're taking enemy fire!"

Admiral Rayne, commander of Sentinel One with his flag aboard the _Illustrious_, came over the comm. "Broadcast to Hive. Situation critical, facing main Oscar battle group. Sentinel One needs immediate fire support."

A voice, heavy with age, answered. "Enemy forces just breached the Maginot Line. All units are currently engaged."

"Goddammit. Copy that, Hive. Alright boys and girls, we're on our own. Serenity One-Six, One-Seven, launch when ready. All vessels, all vessels, evasive manoeuvres. Royal, we need you to lock this place down."

Rayne's words jarred us into motion. Jeff dumped the box into my arms and I sprinted up One-Six's loading ramp and tossed the package haphazardly into the cargo hold.

"Area locked down, Admiral."

"Copy that. One-Six, what's the status of the Portkeys?"

"We're loading them now."

Royal came back on the line. "Admiral, call off the Portkeys."

"Belay that. Sentinel One will hold Oscar off until the evacuation is complete."

"Admiral, those are dreadnoughts out there. Four of them. Sentinel One will die if you engage."

"There are child– civilians in that prison. We can't abandon them. Not again."

"This isn't Bristol, Admiral."

"Dammit, Royal, I know. This time _we'll_ cover _your_ evacuation. How long do you need?"

"I don't know. You don't have to do this."

"The Royal Navy pays its debts. Get the civilians out of the hot zone. We'll hold out as long as possible."

Those words hung heavy in the air for a few moments before Royal answered. "Roger that. Juliet elements will deploy red flares when the evacuation is complete. Good luck."

That settled, Admiral Rayne began barking out orders in earnest. "Pull the carriers and LPDs back and launch all aircraft. All ships, you are weapons free. Toggle Aegis to full automatic."

The enemy battle group disappeared in smoke and thunder as every single fucking vessel in the formation opened fire.

"Go go go!" Someone from Sierra Three shouted, pushing another box into my arms. I turned and –

"INCOMING!" someone across the flight deck screamed.

Most of Oscar's projectiles missed, of course; such is the nature of dumb-fire weapons. But a half dozen or so came close enough to trigger the _Somerset_'s Phalanx CIWS (close-in weapons systems), her last line of defence.

The _Somerset_'s two SeaRAM launchers activated first, putting four RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles in the air, neutralizing four of the incoming shells. The Phalanx system's two 20mm M61 Vulcan autocannons, affectionately known as "Daleks," roared to life as the remaining two shells came within five hundred metres of the vessel. Spewing four thousand armour-piercing tungsten penetrator rounds per minute, the Daleks detonated the last two projectiles in midair before they could strike our vessel.

"Flank speed, full left rudder. _Stockdale_ making torpedo run."

As I tossed another box into One-Six's cargo hold, the _Stockdale_ wheeled about and mounted a solo torpedo run in broad daylight against the entire Oscar fleet, charging into the teeth of enemy fire. Retrofitted with two 21-inch bow tubes usually reserved for attack submarines, the destroyer launched her full complement of Mark 48 ADCAPs, inserting six fish in the water.

The ADCAPs got within five klicks of the enemy fleet before Oscar made visual contact and responded. Sheets of ice slammed into the water around the torpedoes, forming walls that tracked each Mark 48. The thin barriers snaked between the ADCAPs and Oscar's vessels, intercepting four torpedoes.

But Oscar couldn't stop them all.

The first heavy torpedo dipped under Sulaco Four's keel and detonated, the explosion ripping away her bow. Her hull compromised, Sulaco Four broke formation and limped away, trying to put as much distance between herself and Sentinel One.

The second torpedo homed relentlessly in on Sovereign One and slammed into her starboard flank…

Sovereign One emerged structurally intact, with nary a scratch. Bloody hell.

The _Stockdale_ did not escape unscathed. As she completed her torpedo run, the volume of Oscar fire overwhelmed her CIWS. Three explosions rocked her superstructure, shredding her bridge.

"Claymore Section to all Vipers. Fire on my mark."

"Halberd Section copies."

"Guillotine Section, standing by."

"Three, two, one, mark. Hellfires away."

A swarm of thirty-six Vipers, the full complement of attack helis from the _Illustrious_, _Indomitable_, and _Ark Royal_, roared by and loosed seventy-two Hellfire missiles at Oscar's fleet.

Hellfires. They were designed for urban warfare, where the small warhead would minimize collateral damage. Not exactly ideal for use in naval combat; the helicopters had been configured for ground operations, and there simply wasn't time to reconfigure the Vipers to launch the appropriate munitions. We needed to divert fire from Sentinel One immediately for our fleet to survive, and beggars can't be choosers. The Vipers were what we had available and we made the most of the situation.

The missiles converged on their targets at –

"Sentinel One, we read two Repositories activating in your vicinity!"

Dark clouds rolled in over Oscar, blanketing their immediate area. As the Hellfires got within a klick of the enemy fleet, the clouds exploded in bursts of lightning. Jagged spikes of electricity lashed out at the approaching missile swarm, striking down every single Hellfire in three seconds.

"Christ, Padfoot, what the hell was that?" I screamed over the explosions.

"Cloud cover! Area defence mechanism!"

"How do we take it down?"

"Take out the source. Hold on." He paused for a moment. "Running a trace spell on the Repositories now."

"The dreadnoughts," Pride informed me, handing me the final box of Portkeys. "They'll be on one of the dreadnoughts."

I tossed the final box of Portkeys into One-Six's cargo hold.

Padfoot came back on the comm, confirming Pride's statement. "Repositories are located on Sovereign One, one in the captain's cabin, one in the ammunition magazine."

Before I could volunteer, Jeff hit his throat mic and beat me to the punch. "Admiral, permission to board Sovereign One."

"That was my line," I hissed, gently planting a fist into his shoulder. He pretended like it actually hurt.

It took a few moments before the Admiral got back to us. "Sierra One, permission granted. Serenity One-Seven, standby to hot drop Sierra elements. Claymore, Halberd, Guillotine, break off and standby for Sierra's go ahead. All destroyers, all destroyers, commence torpedo runs."

I sprinted around the Osprey as the _Somerset_'s deck rolled beneath my feet, stopping just beneath the cockpit's glass canopy and slapped its hull twice. "You're good to go! Get the hell out of here!"

"Copy that Sierra One. Outbound. Royal, Portkeys are on their way."

One-Six thundered into the air and accelerated towards the prison as I climbed One-Seven's loading ramp. I was the last one in; One-Seven's rotors thrummed to life as I ducked into the Osprey, lifting us skyward. "One-Seven away."

"Sierra elements, Padfoot. Cloud cover requires at least sixty wizards to maintain indefinitely. Due to the delicate balance of magic required to power the spell, if any of those wizards are taken out of the equation, the cloud cover goes down. Bad news first. The Repositories on Sovereign One have a sort of fail-safe system that will activate if any of the cloud personnel are killed; they can maintain the cloud cover for an hour, maybe two, as long as there are surviving personnel to direct their power flow. Now, the good news. Due to the delicate nature of the spell, the Repositories must take into account the number of surviving cloud personnel and compensate accordingly; too much or too little power, the spell will fail. This process takes time. Time during which the cloud cover will be down. The larger the shift in the number of surviving personnel, the longer it takes for the Repositories to compensate. All snipers, you will need to coordinate your shots and attempt to hit your targets simultaneously. That should buy you five to ten seconds. Board the dreadnought and destroy the Repositories; air support's waiting for their shot at Oscar."

"Uh, Padfoot, how do we identify cloud personnel?" Jeff asked, searching among the Osprey's gun racks for an appropriate firearm.

"Cloud cover requires line-of-sight to maintain. Just follow the glowing blue lines. Good luck. Padfoot out."

Captain Reynolds' voice came over the comm. "All units, switch to MSPs and prepare to drop."

MSPs. Mobile Sniper Platforms. Larger versions of the EV. Flying carpet were extremely versatile tools, used in a wide variety of tasks from tactical insertions into difficult terrain to airborne reconnaissance. They proved to be extremely popular among Tier One operation units and were quickly modified and adapted to other purposes. One of the more popular variants was the MSP, which retained several basic design elements of the EV. The materials, the passenger restraints, those remained the same. What changed were size and passenger arrangement. Instead of placing a single person on each edge of the carpet, the MSP was designed to accommodate two prone individuals in the centre in addition to an optional pilot and navigator on the port and starboard edges. To accommodate this new arrangement, the dimensions of the flying carpet were expanded.

As Pride and Avarice prepped our MSP, I glanced out the open cargo ramp at the vessels below us. Sentinel One's destroyers peeled away from the rest of the fleet and charged Oscar's defensive screen. Even the _Stockdale_, her superstructure a twisted mess of metal and smoke, joined the torpedo run, providing fire support with her forward five inch Mk-45 battery.

I turned back to collect my spotting scope as Jeff slung a silenced TDI Vector across his back, retrieved an Accuracy International AWC from one of the Osprey's gun racks, and – was he hugging the rifle?

He caught me shaking my head as we strapped into the MSP. "Oh, don't be jealous."

"Please. Me, jealous of that old thing?"

Jeff gave me a look that suggested disappointment and disapproval. "I thought you had good taste. This is a classic."

"Drop in three…two…one…"

And for the second time that day, Avarice launched our flying carpet from Serenity One-Seven. She came to a stop just outside the active region of Oscar's cloud cover, allowing me to scan the – there. Threads of light, glimmering gently against the storm clouds, stretched towards Sovereign One, originating from several cloaked figures on the dreadnought's deck. Dozens of them, seated in a circle.

"All Sierra elements in position."

"Targets located near Sovereign One's mast, grouped in a circle," I said.

"Copy that, Sierra One. We see them."

"Sierra One has dreads. Sierra Two, you take ginger. Sierra Three, skinhead. Sierra Four, beard. Sierra Five, goggles. Sierra Six, eye patch."

A chorus of "Target acquired" came over my headset.

I fed Jeff the required atmospheric conditions before broadcasting to the rest of the group. "All snipers, fire on my mark. Three…two…one…mark."

Jeff's AWC roared as he dropped a single .308 Winchester round into the back of his target's skull. "Go go go!" I screamed as the dead Oscar crumpled to the deck.

I had just enough time to register four pink haloes when Avarice kicked our MSP into overdrive, the other Fire Teams falling into place behind us.

One…

Five ADCAPs from the destroyers' run leaked through Oscar's ice screen, swarming Basestar Seven and Sulaco One. Sulaco One took two torpedo hits, one of which must have set off her powder magazines; an alarmingly large fireball engulfed the ship, completely obliterating the vessel. Basestar Seven took three hits amidships, breaking her back.

Two…

Light filled the air around us as Avarice began evasive manoeuvres.

Three…

Every single ship in the enemy fleet opened up on the destroyer screen at once.

Four…

An explosion burned one of the MSPs behind me out of the sky.

Five…

The sheer volume of enemy fire overwhelmed the _Sampson_'s and _Decatur_'s CIWS as Oscar's fleet smashed into Sentinel One's first defensive line.

Six.

The MSP slammed to a halt over Sovereign One. I slapped the release button on my harness and rolled over the MSP's port side, my right hand ripping the HK416 off my back. Sheets of blue, green, and orange saturated the airspace around me as I hit the deck, the first volley of panic fire from the huddled group of Oscar in my immediate vicinity.

I suppressed an urge to shake my head. Over fifty spells launched at an exposed target with a zero percent hit rate? Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for their lack of accuracy; being first into the breach usually meant heavy casualties. It's just that, well, I hadn't expected to emerge quite so unscathed.

Terrible what passes for support personnel nowadays.

I landed in a crouch and triggered short bursts at the densest cluster of Oscar, providing cover fire for the other Fire Teams as they landed. "Contact, two o'clock!"

Jeff's Vector began chattering somewhere to my left. Avarice crept forward, her wand glowing; the area around us shimmered, rapidly transitioning from air to steel. I slid up against the newly created wall, pressing my back against the cool metal as I reloaded. "Sierra elements, status report."

"Sierra Two, all present and accounted for."

"Sierra Five, boarding complete, no casualties."

"What happened to Sierra Three, Four and Six?" I asked.

"They didn't make it."

I grimaced. "Copy that."

I took a quick peek around the steel wall to get a bearing on our objective and immediately pulled my head back as a fresh barrage of spells smashed into Avarice's barrier. Ugh. Not good. We were separated from our objective by two hundred metres' worth of open deck. While Oscar's naval personnel had raised inaccuracy to an art form, they still had enough training to practice mass fire tactics. Inaccurate or not, Oscar only needed to get lucky once. Unless…

I glanced at Avarice. "Can you keep us in defilade to the objective?"

She gave me a toothy grin. "Of course. Delta Alphas, prep Hand Torches and prepare to launch assault tunnels on my mark."

"Sierra One will take the captain's cabin. Sierra Two, Sierra Five, you've got the ammunition magazine."

"Copy that. Standing by."

"Remember," Pride whispered to Avarice as she carefully attached a new Hand Torch to Jeff's combat webbing. She snapped her fingers, relighting our candles. "There's only one way into the captain's cabin; push your assault tunnel up to the front doors."

"I know, I know." Avarice rolled her eyes

"Ready when you are," I said.

Avarice nodded. "Assault tunnels in three…two…one…mark."

The wall I was leaning against arched over my head, the top edge rising slightly before curving toward the deck, enclosing us in a semi-circular tube of steel. The passageway had a three-metre radius, tall enough for us to stand comfortably within its confines. With a stomach-churning rumble, the tube stretched, exploding toward our objective at supersonic speeds and cutting neatly through anything that got in its way. Two other metal tunnels branched from our position, running toward the stairs leading down to Sovereign One's ammunition magazine.

"All teams, go."

We tore down Avarice's tunnel as magic slammed into the steel around us. At least four explosive spells failed to find their way into the tunnel, a testament to the quality of Avarice's magic. Darkness replaced daylight as we plunged further into the depths of the corridor.

A figure in grey robes staggered out of the blackness, arms in front of him, blindly groping about. Without breaking stride, Avarice flicked her wand and said "_Levicorpus_." Some invisible force jerked Oscar into the air by his left ankle and held him there, leaving him to dangle helplessly upside down. As she passed him, Avarice gently caressed his throat with the tip of her wand and whispered, "_Sectumsempra_."

"Breaching," Pride called out as an imposing set of double doors loomed out of the darkness. She extended her wand and blew both doors off their hinges.

"Frag out." I ripped a grenade from my body armour and hurled the explosive device into the room beyond. It detonated with a muffled thump.

Room clearing. Jeff and I had been doing this for so long that there was no need for verbal communication. I went left, he went right.

Time slowed as I flowed through the shattered doorway, the adrenaline giving me an impossibly detailed look at the room. The captain's cabin (located at the stern of the ship, above the rudder) was spacious by seafaring standards, with a full sized Repository dominating much of the available space. I stepped over a body as two sentries, posted on the glass tank's left flank, turned toward me. Too late. I neutralized both guards with two centre mass bursts. Behind me, I heard Jeff's Vector thrum once, twice and fall silent.

I scanned my sector for a few moments.

No movement, no signs of life. "Left sector clear."

"Right sector clear."

As Pride got to work disabling the Repository, Sierra Two transmitted, "Repository neutralized and charges set. Sierra Two outbound."

Charges? What charges? "Say again, Sierra Two, what – "

"GET DOWN!"

I hit the floor as soon as I heard Avarice scream and the entire front wall of the cabin exploded inwards. A hand the size of a small motor vehicle swept by centimetres over my head, barrelling through the space I had occupied moments before. Missing its target, the hand pulled back out, bringing the rest of the wall with it.

The giant roared, preparing to plunge his hand into the cabin once more. Acting on pure adrenaline, I rolled onto my back, braced the HK416 against my shoulder and pulled the trigger. In a fully automatic roar, the assault rifle emptied the magazine into the giant's unarmoured face at a rate of nine hundred rounds a minute. The Goliath reeled back with a roar, staggering away from our position before collapsing to the deck.

Pride pulled me up. "It's done! Repository neutralized!"

I glanced back at… well, at the space Repository used to occupy; all that was left of the glass tank was an impression in the deck. "Let's get the f – "

A flash of green burned through the air by my ear. I turned just in time to see a Technicolor swarm of magic descend on our position. "INCOMING!" I heard myself shout.

Cover. We needed to find cover. With the front wall gone, there wasn't much left to –

The tunnel. I spun toward the metal arch… just as the whole thing melted into useless globs of slime. Jesus f –

The giant. I grabbed Jeff's hand and scrambled across the deck, pushing up against the giant's corpse as the wall of spells slammed into our position. Avarice and Pride joined us moments later.

"Padfoot!" I screamed as the deck around us erupted in a shower of splinters. "Both Repositories neutralized! Cloud cover is down, I repeat, cloud cover is down!"

"Copy that, Sierra One, cloud cover down. All air assets, you are clear to engage. Good hunting."

I slid around the giant's head for a moment to squeeze off a couple rounds –

The giant's corpse vanished.

And for one crystal clear moment, I saw four-dozen wands levelled at our very fragile bodies. Fuck me.

"Now!" a voice thundered. My eyes instantly snapped to the voice's owner, a hulking man in a hideous iron mask, the Oscar closest to our position. "_Ava_ – "

Bloody hell. Reacting on pure instinct, I hauled my assault rifle up in a desperate attempt to disrupt the spell.

I knew I'd never make it in time.

" – _da_ – "

His body shuddered mid-syllable as a series of gaping holes walked up his torso, starting from the left hip and ending just below his chin.

And Serenity One-Seven descended on our position, her belly turret blazing. The GAU-17 mini-gun swivelled from left to right, scything through Oscar's ranks with a wall of 7.62mm rounds.

Captain Reynolds' voice came over the comm. "Well, looky here. Looks like we got here just in time. What does that make us?"

His co-pilot, Lt. Washburne, was kind enough to reply. "Big damn heroes, sir!"

"Ain't we just? Sierra One, we've got you covered. Let's get the hell out of here."

We didn't need to be told twice. Avarice redeployed our MSP and we took off at maximum possible speed. One-Seven was right on our tail, still hosing down Sovereign One as she retreated. "Sierra One outbound."

"Sierra One, this is Sierra Two. Copy that. Keep an eye on Sovereign One and enjoy the show."

Jeff and I looked at each other as spells slashed through the air around us. What? We turned to watch Sovereign One.

In a calm, professional voice, Sierra Two said, "Alpha Mike Foxtrot."

A series of blasts, originating from her ammunition magazine, rippled through Sovereign One, building into a titanic explosion that tore the vessel apart.

As we looped away from the burning wreckage, Nucleus transmitted, "Sierra elements are clear. Raven Flight, initiate thunder."

"Copy that. Initiating thunder in three… two… one… thunder."

Raven, a flight of four Harrier IIs, streaked by, loosing eight AGM-84 Harpoons. Below us, Basestar Three and Five lit up as they took multiple missile hits.

"Nucleus, Alpha elements are on station."

"Copy that, Alpha One. Begin attack run on Sovereign Two. Sierra elements, we need you to provide fire support for the _Underwood_."

"Roger that." I scanned the battle raging below us… there. We swooped in as the _Underwood_ engaged Sulaco Eleven, a vessel five times her size. As Jeff and I began picking off Sulaco Eleven's officers, the enemy cruiser tried to bracket the _Underwood_ in an attempt to find a firing solution. For her part, the _Underwood_ frustrated Sulaco Eleven's efforts by "chasing splashes," or steering toward the bracketing rounds, as she darted closer to the enemy cruiser. Somehow, someway, the _Underwood_ managed to slip in behind Sulaco Eleven's unprotected stern.

And the frigate cut loose with her Otobreda 76mm, firing as quickly as the loading mechanism would allow. Armour-piercing shells ripped into Sulaco Eleven, tearing the vessel apart. As Sulaco Eleven sank, five of her sisters converged on the _Underwood_.

We did what we could for the frigate as she desperately tried to escape her pursuers; I picked out targets and Jeff dropped them as quickly as humanly possible. It wasn't enough. The _Underwood_ managed to severely damage Sulaco Three before she was hit by a dozen shells.

Still no red flares from Azkaban.

One of Oscar's assault formations, a battleship (Basestar Six) supported by four cruisers, pulled within range of our carriers. As they began firing on the _Ark Royal_, a lone destroyer inserted herself between the Oscar group and Invincible-class carrier.

"Commence firing on that battleship, draw her fire on us and away from the _Ark Royal_."

And the _Stockdale_, limping from a dozen hits and down to one working engine, opened fire on the entire Oscar battle formation with her remaining Mk-45. Unprepared for the ferocity of _Stockdale_'s assault, the formation faltered and began to fall back, abandoning their attack on our carriers. They turned their fire on the _Stockdale_, putting five full consecutive broadsides into the little destroyer.

As the destroyer went down, Basestar Six's captain made a cutting motion with his hand. The battleship's guns went silent. The captain faced the sinking _Stockdale_ and saluted the doomed destroyer.

Still no red flares from Azkaban.

With Sentinel One's defensive screens practically gone, Oscar began shelling the LPDs and the carriers. Even while they desperately evaded enemy fire, the carriers continuously landed, refuelled, rearmed, and re-launched their full complement of attack helicopters and fighters. In an effort to buy the carriers enough time to refuel and rearm the fighters with the proper munitions, the Vipers made dummy attack runs on Oscar's fleet with no ammo until the Harriers and Lightnings could be relaunched with a full load of Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The fighters did the same for the helis, making dry runs while the Vipers returned for a fresh load of 20mm shells and Hellfires.

Still no red flares from Azkaban.

Sovereign Two brought the _Arlington_, _New Orleans_ and _Somerset_ under her guns. The LPDs didn't stand a chance.

The dreadnought was turning toward the _Ark Royal_ when her ammunition banks detonated. I only saw one MSP make it off Sovereign Two before the explosion consumed her.

Still no red flares from Azkaban.

The _Indomitable_, her flight deck crammed with munitions, took six shells from Sulaco Three, Five, and Eight. The chain reaction tore the carrier in half.

Moments later, Maverick Flight avenged the _Indomitable_ by blanketing the three enemy cruisers with fire.

Still no red flares from Azkaban.

Sovereign Four manoeuvred up against the _Illustrious_ and fired a full broadside into the carrier. The dreadnought pulled away as the carrier began to list dangerously to the side.

Admiral Rayne's voice crackled in my ear. "Turn thirty degrees to port, full power to engines. All hands abandon ship."

The carrier began to turn slowly and pick up speed as all surviving crewmembers escaped the stricken vessel.

All except one.

Admiral Rayne stayed at the helm and rammed Sovereign Four, catastrophically gutting both ships before a series of explosions consumed both vessels.

Still no red flares from Azkaban.

Oscar forces converged on Sentinel One's four remaining vessels.

"_Ark Royal_, this is the _Gravely_. Pull back. We'll cover you as long as we can."

I glanced at the others. We all knew there was only one thing we could do to make a difference. Pride gave me a curt nod. Avarice smiled. Jeff and I looked at each other for a long moment before he reached out and took my hand. I keyed my comm. "This is Sierra One. We'll board Sovereign Three. See if we can buy you a few more seconds."

"Copy that, Sierra One. Good luck."

With that, we swept in on Sovereign Three as the _Gravely_, _Ingraham_, and _Vandergrift_ made one last desperate attack run on Oscar's battleships.

A cloud of magic rose to meet us as we dove toward Sovereign Three. Avarice deftly manoeuvred the MSP through the storm, flitting between deadly streaks of light.

We were half a klick from Sovereign Three when the explosive spell smashed into our MSP.

"HOLD ON!" Avarice screamed as my world spiralled out of control. Sky and sea blended into one confusing mess as she tried to regain control of the MSP. Pride screamed something and I felt the flying carpet slow momentarily. Too late. I caught a glimpse of wood and cloth as our MSP slammed into one of Oscar's vessels.

I felt my legs break upon impact with the vessel's deck. The crash was too much for my harness to handle; it snapped, throwing me free of the MSP. I lost my assault rifle as I slid forty metres before smashing into the ship's guardrail.

And suddenly, everything was still. I tried to push myself up. Agony lanced through my body, draining what little strength I had left. I collapsed to the deck, sucking breaths in through my teeth.

"Sierra One, this is Padfoot. What's your status?"

I heard a series of gunshots before a hand fell on my shoulder. Jeff dragged himself next to me, his left arm obviously broken. Settling with his back to the guardrail, Jeff looped his uninjured arm around me and drew me close, pulling me up against his chest. "Help me reload." Holding the M1911 in his right hand, he squeezed the thumb release and allowed gravity to eject the empty mag.

Leaning against him, I pulled an extra magazine from his ammunition pouch, slid it into his sidearm, and helped him pull the slide back to chamber a round. I coughed as I drew my own pistol, rasping out, "Sierra One is down."

Padfoot didn't receive my transmission. "Sierra One, come in. What's your status? Fuck, these comms are buggered. Albus, we lost contact with Sierra One."

There was a slight pause before Hive's answered. "On my way."

"What about the Maginot?"

"That situation has been resolved. We are coming in."

I groaned and looked around, trying to locate the last two members of our team.

Pride lay facedown to my right, five metres away. She was unconscious, the hair against the back of her head matted with blood.

Avarice sat to my left. Like Jeff and me, she was leaning against the guardrail, her breathing short and shallow. Her arms were wrapped around her stomach, cradling something against her.

She caught me watching her. With a pained groan, Avarice moved her arms, revealing the twisted piece of guardrail embedded in her abdomen. The jagged piece of wood had entered her back and exited just left of her belly button, pinning her against the side of the ship. She grimaced and held up both her hands; her wand was gone.

Hive's voice came back over my earpiece. "Where are they?"

I could picture Padfoot's hopeless shrug. "I don't know. We can't raise them on comms."

"Hive, this is One-Seven. We have a visual on Sierra One aboard Basestar Six; they're down, one possible KIA. Damn it, Oscar personnel are converging on their position. Moving in to provide fire support."

Serenity One-Seven came in hot, strafing the battleship from bow to stern. Her mini-gun tore a ragged line through Oscar's ranks, throwing broken bodies to the deck. As she pulled out of her attack run, Oscar returned fire, throwing up a swarm of spells at the Osprey's retreating form.

A single beam of red found its mark.

The spell detonated against Serenity One-Seven's port wing, tearing off the rotor. The Osprey spun out of control and disappeared from view.

Fuck.

"Kingsley, drop the anti-Disapparition Jinx."

"I can't do – "

Hive cut Royal off. "Ariana's out there. Drop the jinx."

Jeff's pistol cracked twice. Twenty metres away, one of the hostiles advancing on our position fell, two bullets in his chest. The others hit the deck, placing whatever obstacles they could between their flesh and our bullets. Whenever Oscar got too bold and tried to emerge from cover, Jeff and I discouraged him with a couple .45s.

It wasn't long before my M1911 clicked empty. A couple rounds later, Jeff's did too.

"Look," Jeff whispered, pointing at the horizon.

I turned my head slightly to look out over the North Sea.

Red flares.

The pistol slipped through my fingers and I laughed weakly. "Well, that's that then."

It took Oscar a few moments to gather the courage to approach us. Even then, it was with wands raised and shields active. They relaxed when they saw the extent of our injuries. One of them, a huge man with blond hair, shot me an ugly smile full of rotten teeth. "Kill them," he growled.

"Anti-Disapparition Jinx is down," Royal said quietly. "You're good to go, Albus."

"Thank you."

There was a loud crack as five figures warped in, placing themselves squarely between the enemy personnel and us. Before Oscar could react, one of the newcomers gave an irritated wave of his wand; there was an odd crack as every Oscar in sight turned to stone.

Having single-handedly neutralized a battleship's worth of hostiles, the newcomer turned and approached our position as the other White Hats swept the deck for additional threats. He was an elegant old man, every inch the stereotypical wizard. Tall? Check. Thin? Check. Long silver hair? Check. Long silver beard? Check. The only thing that didn't quite fit was his crooked nose; this was someone who had obviously participated in a physical altercation or two.

The old man knelt beside Avarice and gently brushed a stray lock of blonde hair out of her eyes.

"Granduncle?" she whispered.

"Hush, Ariana," Hive said, gently stroking her hair. "You're safe now."

He turned to one of the White Hats, a stern woman wearing a Healer's white robes. "Please transport the wounded to Aalborg for treatment. Sirius, Minerva, and Nymphadora will help you."

Hive turned toward the bow and paused. "Oh, and Poppy? Please take good care of her."

The White Hat frowned. "Where are you going?"

Hive's eyes burned an icy blue. "To wrap up loose ends."

The other White Hats began prepping us for transport as Hive stalked to the bow. One of the witches, an old woman with black hair, fretted over Avarice. She carefully severed the jagged piece of wood lodged in Avarice's body from the rest of the ship and transformed it into a thick roll of gauze, packing the wound.

Padfoot gathered Pride's unconscious form in his arms, using magic to temporarily seal her lacerations.

An odd creaking sound came from the bow as a young witch with pink hair helped the Healer untangle Jeff from me and stabilized our broken bones. I watched in horrid fascination as Hive, his wand arm outstretched, lifted Sovereign Three fifty metres in the air.

Just before the White Hats teleported us out of harm's way, I saw the dreadnought crumple like a piece of paper, compacting into a ball roughly a third of its original size.

I don't remember much after that. Faces I didn't recognize loomed over me and said things like "internal bleeding" and "multiple fractures." I caught a glimpse of an operating room before everything faded to black.

I opened my eyes. A sterile white ceiling stared back at me. With a groan, I tried pushing myself off the mattress. My left hand wouldn't move. A little concerned, I rolled onto my side to find out why.

Jeff was fast asleep in the chair beside my hospital bed, his left arm in a sling, his right hand lying on top of my left. I gently extricated my fingers, careful not to wake him, and looked around the room.

A battered couch sat across the room, occupied by two forms. Ron, the lanky bloke from Azkaban, was sprawled out across the cushions, snoring. Pride dozed quietly against Ron's side, her head swathed in bandages.

Avarice occupied the bed next to mine, sleeping off whatever spells that had been used to patch her up. Hive quietly kissed her forehead and turned to leave.

"Thank you. For saving us out there," I said.

He smiled sadly at Avarice. "I could not lose her again."

"Sorry?" I asked, slightly confused.

"She reminds me of someone I have not seen in a very long time." Footsteps echoed down the corridor outside. "Ah, it seems you have visitors."

Captain Reynolds burst into the room and woke everyone up by booming, "Morning, wounded persons and their loved ones!"

Ginny, Cho, Neville, and the bespectacled wizard from Alpha One crowded in behind him.

We all traded a joyous round of hugs and slaps on the back as Hive slipped out of the room. "How the hell did you survive the crash?" I asked Reynolds.

He shrugged. "Ah, you know me. Always been lucky. You're looking better."

"Definitely doesn't feel that way."

Jeff laughed. "She had us worried for a few moments last night."

I rolled my eyes. "Please, you were probably too busy ogling the nurses."

"I can confirm that," Avarice chimed in.

"Right. If I remember, you were unconscious for…." Reynolds tapped a thoughtful finger against his chin as he stared at the witch. "Say, you are very pretty."

I gave him my best look of disapproval. "Seriously?"

And so it went.

For one blissful day, we could forget about assault formations, Oscar, and this fucking war.

For one day, we could pretend we had normal lives and laugh a little.

It wasn't perfect, but it was enough.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Hogwarts

"SCUM! DEGENRATES! MUDBLOODS AND – "

The portrait of Sirius's mum was screaming at us again.

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" Sirius roared as he stomped down the hall for the third time tonight and covered the painting with a furious wave of his wand. The hallway fell silent as the curtains snapped shut over the portrait. "God, I hate this place," he grumbled to himself.

"Sorry, Sirius." Ariana looked appropriately apologetic as she picked up the ugly umbrella stand she had knocked over while coming in from sentry duty. She slipped her arm through his as they joined us in the kitchen. "You aren't mad, are you?"

Half irritated and half amused, he cracked a smile as they took a seat at the table. "Don't worry about it."

I shook my head and turned back to my conversation with Jeff. Over the last two months, every single one of us had taken a crack at destroying the portrait with no success. The damn thing had survived everything from the rigorous application of a jimmy bar to full on contact with a cutting torch. In the end, we admitted defeat and did our best to ignore it, some days with more success than others.

Besides, Sirius' mum was one of the house's more benign idiosyncrasies. During our first week inside, we had our hands full sweeping the place for active threats. The house was full of them, including a music box that threatened to put us all in comas and a set of purple robes that attempted to choke the life out of Jeff when he tried removing them from the wardrobe. We had done our best to isolate and toss the more dangerous items, but it was still very much a work in progress.

But I couldn't complain. While the house wasn't exactly ideal for my sanity, 12 Grimmauld Place was one of the few safe houses the White Hats had left in the UK and our HUMINT asset had requested localized direct action teams be placed on standby for "a time sensitive operation that could potentially end this fucking war." His words.

The asset, a double agent planted in the upper echelons of Oscar's military structure, had relayed some interesting news to Phoenix command three months ago: a highly ranked member of Oscar's Death Eater division (codenamed "Sauron") would be visiting the asset's facility in the very near future. Although the date of the visitation had not been confirmed, the asset (codenamed "Metatron") made a judgement call and recommended the mobilisation of Task Force Phoenix to prepare for an assassination attempt.

Vague as the intel was, Dumbledore considered the asset above reproach and persuaded Kingsley to dispatch several Fire Teams to the area. Operating in "cells" consisting of two Fire Teams and a guide familiar with the local terrain, we would be dispersed across London and its surrounding boroughs to wait for Metatron's go order. Sierra One and Sierra Two were paired up with Sirius Black, aka Padfoot, for the duration of this operation.

Eight Fire Teams were dropped into the British Isles over the course of a week. Thirteen days after Dumbledore received Metatron's report, a single HC-130 transport flew over the English Channel and we entered British airspace at 11,000 metres, performing a HALO insertion into the outskirts of London, the heart of Oscar-occupied territory. Landing just outside the city, we regrouped and ghosted our way into London using a combination of flying carpets and Invisibility Cloaks. Dodging at least a dozen aerial patrols while avoiding the general Oscar populace, we finally made our way to 12 Grimmauld Place.

12 Grimmauld Place. Yes, it had fallen into a nearly inhospitable state of disrepair. Yes, it seemed like everything inside was trying to kill us.

It was possibly the most secure safe house we had in the British Isles.

Formerly owned by Sirius' paranoid wreck of a father, 12 Grimmauld Place was a tangled nest of defensive spells and magical security measures. Sirius actually had to disable a majority of his father's protective charms just to allow the non-magicals in our cell to see the damn place. The remaining enchantments had been more than enough to keep us hidden from Oscar for the past three months. Three months spent waiting for Metatron's go order. Three months spent cooped up inside.

We did what we could to pass the time.

"Nice find," Jeff said, examining the locket.

"Ten euros says you can't open it."

He gave me a suspicious look. "No bet. Who sealed it for you?"

I blew a lock of blonde hair out of my face and took the locket back from Jeff. "Spoilsport. No, I found it like that. Been trying to prise it open all afternoon."

Hermione held out a hand. "Here, let me take a look at it."

"I don't know – "

A silver ball of light interrupted me, flashing through the ceiling and coming to a rest on the table. The outline of a doe materialized from its swirling depths and spoke three words.

"_He is here._"

There was a moment of stillness as the Patronus dissipated before everyone leapt to their pre-assigned roles. Sirius and Ariana left to recall Sierra Two from sentry duty while Hermione went upstairs to fetch our transportation specialists. I jammed the locket into my pocket as Jeff and I scrambled into the dining room to prep our hardware. It was my responsibility to inspect the body armour while Jeff checked our firearms.

I examined each ballistic vest thoroughly, my fingertips sliding over smooth black leather. The vests had started out innocently enough, as standard issue MBAVs. Then Arthur got his hands on them. The end product was a lightweight and flexible armour system that consisted of giant-skin leather backed by magically enhanced ceramic trauma plates and Kevlar. Giant skin takes care of minor combat spells, trauma plates and Kevlar take care of the physical stuff. Pretty comprehensive coverage.

As I checked the armour, Jeff laid out our firearms and ammunition in neat rows on the dining room table. The table was rather empty for a night op; we were leaving most of our stuff behind, like night vision devices and infrared laser sights. Unfortunately, we couldn't bring any of our circuit-based equipment with us on this mission; according to Metatron's intel, there was some sort of interference field around Sauron's current location, a field that actively disabled any electronics within its area of effect. While we were able to magically jury-rig some mission-critical devices to work within the interference field (like our comms, courtesy of Arthur), there was no time to adapt all of our equipment.

While the lack of personal electronics was worrisome, the lack of air support was worse. Obviously, our helicopters, fighters and bombers couldn't give us close support within the field. On top of that, our munitions, from fragmentation grenades to guided missiles, are built around electrical detonators. Without the detonators, our explosives were next to useless. Strafing runs, while possible, were likely out of the question: if the mission went according to plan, we would be spending a majority of the op indoors.

Just as I finished checking the modified MBAVS, the front door flew open and Sierra Two entered, followed by Ariana and Sirius. As the others sorted through the equipment, I strapped on my body armour, picked my suppressed HK416 off the table, and caught the mags Jeff tossed my way. I slapped a magazine into the assault rifle, chambered a round, and stashed the rest of the mags in the right hip pouch on my combat webbing. I slung the HK416 over my shoulder and grabbed a suppressed M1911, brass checking the sidearm before sliding it into my tactical thigh rig. I was slipping the final piece of my load out over my left forearm (a matte black compression sleeve mounted with a clear strip of ballistic material stretching from wrist to elbow) when I heard Ariana say, "Jesus, what's that for?"

Jeff carefully loaded a 32-shell drum magazine into his enormous AA-12 automatic shotgun and shot her a smile full of teeth. "For close encounters."

Hermione returned as we finished gearing up. Time elapsed: fifteen minutes.

She came back with two diminutive forms, one young and sprightly, one old and decrepit. Each was no more than a metre tall, with spindly arms and legs. These two creatures were the key to our plan of attack. While Metatron was able to discreetly remove many of the charms protecting his compound, there were several enchantments he could not dispel without compromising his status as a double. The anti-teleportation field blanketing the compound was one of those spells. To circumvent the field and ensure a stealthy insertion into hostile territory, Hermione had come up with an elegant solution: house elves.

"Everyone link up," Sirius called out.

I took Jeff's hand and stepped up to the younger house elf, the one called Dobby. His knobbly hand closed over mine as Jeff linked up with Ariana. Hermione closed our circle, taking Dobby's free hand. Beside us, Sirius and Sierra Two formed their own teleportation circle with the old house elf… Creature, or whatever his name is.

"Apparate in three, two, one…"

There was an awful pop and everything went dark for a terrifying moment. A crushing sensation seized my ribcage, pushing my heart up into my throat. Just as the strain threatened to overwhelm my senses, the pressure abated and I was released from the teleportation spell's constrictive grip. I collapsed to the leaf-strewn ground, gasping for breath.

Gone were the dreary walls of 12 Grimmauld Place, replaced by endless rows of trees that loomed up around us. A fine mist settled hugged the earth, seeping into the moist loam.

"Alpha, we're in."

"Juliet ready to go."

"Marauder, standing by."

"Sierra on station," Hermione transmitted as Jeff hauled me to my feet.

A few seconds went by before Nucleus, command base's radio operator, responded. "All units go dark and proceed to target location."

A new voice, Metatron's, crackled over the comm. "Watch your approach. Patrols on duty."

Hermione keyed her throat mic. "Understood. Cloaking."

I drew my Invisibility Cloak tightly around my shoulders as the rest of the cell disappeared from view. We headed east, running silently through the dense undergrowth.

As we approached a small clearing covered with spider silk, I heard someone behind me draw in a sharp breath. "Hermione?" Ariana whispered, her voice tinged with uncertainty. "Is this…?"

A horrible sense of recognition slipped into Hermione's words. "Oh, God, this is the Forbidden Forest."

What the hell?

Hermione stopped in her tracks and ripped her Cloak's hood off in one furious motion. "Goddammit, Metatron, you did _not_ say he was at Hogwarts!"

I could almost hear his sneer when Metatron responded. "Need to know, Sierra. And you didn't need to know."

The rest of the cell ground to a halt as I pulled off my own hood. "Hogwarts? What the hell is Hogwarts?"

"A school," Hermione said without looking at me.

Jesus Christ. A school. Which meant…

Sirius shared my train of thought. "There are children in there! That's fucking need to know! We can't just – "

A delicate cough interrupted Sirius's outburst, and Cho, one of Sierra Two's White Hats, uncloaked. "Look, we don't have time for this. This may be our best chance to kill him –"

"Finally," Metatron said, sounding slightly vindicated. "A voice of reason."

Cho pressed on. " – so send the house elves in. They'll have the students evacuated by the time we get there."

I could feel Metatron bristle across the comm. "Absolutely not," he snarled. "If he even gets wind of – "

Cho cut him off. "You misunderstand. We're not asking for your permission." She turned to Dobby, kneeling to look the little elf in the eye. "Dobby? I know it's dangerous but we need you to get the children out. Can you coordinate with the other elves and evacuate the castle?"

"Of course," Dobby said without a trace of hesitation. "Dobby won't let you down."

Sirius turned to the other elf. "Creature, go with Dobby and help him best you can."

"If that is what Master wants." Creature gave Sirius one look of utter loathing before Dobby grabbed one of his withered hands and both disappeared with an odd pop.

"Sierra, Metatron, this is Marauder One Actual. We'll secure an exit vector for the students and elves."

"Copy that, Marauder. Thanks." Hermione pulled the hood back over her head. "Come on, we still have an HVT to eliminate."

We ran silently for several terse minutes, dodging patches of dried leaves and branches, before the forest began to thin and –

"Hold," I whispered. "Structure at the tree line."

The rest of the cell dropped instantly, motionless under their Invisibility Cloaks. Moving as quietly and slowly as possible, I slid behind a particularly dense cluster of trees. As Jeff crept to my position, I made sure that my Invisibility Cloak remained tightly wrapped around my rifle and scanned the small wooden cabin through the mounted Trijicon ACOG TA01NSN scope.

Contact.

My crosshair wandered across two Oscars, both dressed in black. The one on the left, a huge fellow sporting an utterly ridiculous goatee, tossed a pack of cigarettes to the one on the right, another beefy fellow with equally ridiculous sideburns. "Two sentries outside of the structure."

"Sierra One November, you are weapons free. Make it quiet."

"Roger that, Nucleus." I turned slightly and whispered in Jeff's general direction. "Sideburn's mine."

Jeff clicked his mic once in acknowledgement and we split up, stalking silently towards the two sentries. Goatee continued on his patrol route, looping around the other side of the structure and out of view. Sideburns headed into the forest as he slapped the carton lightly against his palm and extricated a cigarette with his teeth. He stopped walking for a second and muttered something around the cig. The tip of his wand burst into flame and he leaned forward slightly, cupping a hand around the cigarette to light up.

The pause allowed me to creep within two metres of his position. I lifted the suppressed M1911 with my right hand, my left hand hovering just over the ejection port. Carefully lining up my sights, I allowed him a couple quick puffs before squeezing the trigger.

Now, despite the adjective used, "silenced" firearms are still quite loud. Discharging a standard issue suppressed M1911 still results in a muffled bang, not unlike the report of a loud staple gun. Fortunately for me, my sidearm was not standard issue; the M1911 had been charmed to silence the gunshot entirely. The only sound the pistol made when I squeezed the trigger was a metallic rasp as the slide kicked back. I caught the shell casing with my left hand as it ejected, the heat from the brass soaking through my glove.

The hollowpoint ploughed through his left temple and continued through his right. As he began to collapse, I darted forward and caught the corpse, careful to avoid the messy exit wound. I gently lowered the body to the ground, smooth and silent. "Sentry neutralized."

A few moments passed before Jeff announced, "Oscar down."

"Copy that, moving to structure."

Leaving the body, I moved as quickly and quietly as possible to the structure, pressing my back against the wall beneath the east window. Making sure I had full coverage from my Invisibility Cloak, I popped my head up and hazarded a peek through the glass. A particularly fat Oscar sat at the kitchen table situated just in front of the window, his back facing me. Looking beyond him, I spotted another Oscar across the room, poking away at a giant kettle nestled in the fireplace. The two were obviously on break, taking the opportunity to refuel and re-hydrate. Ariana and Jeff ghosted to the structure's front door, covering the aperture as I whispered, "Two Oscars inside."

Jeff clicked his mic once in acknowledgement.

I keyed my comm. "I've got the fat one."

"Copy that."

"Breaching in three, two, one." There was a muffled thump as Ariana shattered the door, breaking it down into thousands of perfect cubes.

As soon as I heard the door disintegrate, I put three suppressed shots through the window, drilling the fat Oscar with two quick shots in the back followed by a measured shot to the back of his head.

Jeff burst in silently through the cascade of blocks and performed his own Failure Drill on the second Oscar, a double tap to his target's centre of mass followed with a carefully aimed shot to the head.

A quick sweep of the structure yielded no additional targets. "Structure clear."

Hermione and the others, having swept the surrounding area while we were clearing the hut, joined us in the cabin. "Sector is clear. Metatron, we need a quiet way in."

"That is a _great_ idea, getting into the castle undetected. No doubt an effective strategy _if_ the Dark Lord is somehow struck blind and_ doesn't notice that the school is devoid of goddamn students_." Having gotten that out of his system, he continued, "There's a Vanishing Cabinet inside of the hut. Its counterpart is in a secure location under my watch; that should get you into the castle without activating any detection enchantments. Feel free to use it once you're finished jeopardizing the mission."

Sirius looked like he was going to say something he would regret, so I cut smoothly into the conversation. "Copy that," was my incredibly diplomatic reply.

Fortunately, Marauder saved me from Sirius's glare. "Nucleus, all students have been evacuated from the castle, and the elves are now teleporting them off school grounds. We'll oversee the Apparition process and keep an exit vector open."

"Keep us posted, Marauder. Alpha, Juliet, Sierra, you are cleared to enter the castle."

"Sierra, this is Alpha One Actual. Get going, we'll be right behind you."

"See you on the other side, Alpha. Cloaks off, boys and girls, we're Oscar Mike."

While the Invisibility Cloaks were incredibly useful for infiltration purposes, once we were inside the castle, they would hurt us more than they would help. In the castle's maze of hallways, it was impossible for the three strike teams to keep track of each other; friendly fire was a very real possibility. By removing the cloaks, we were hoping to remove the possibility of blue-on-blue incidents. While this would detract somewhat from our stealthiness, it was a trade-off we were willing to make.

Sirius tapped the cabin's sole cabinet with his wand and muttered, "_Harmonia Nectere Passus_."

The cabinet's door swung open on its own accord and Sirius bowed with a wry twirl of his hand. "After you."

I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath, drawing my sidearm and stepping into the cabinet's inky depths. There was an odd hum and a shift in temperature as I crept forward, one hand in front of me, searching in wide arcs. My fingertips encountered resistance, a wooden surface. I was through.

See, Vanishing Cabinets come in pairs. They act somewhat like wormholes; objects placed in one will be transported into the other. The cabinet in the hut connected to one inside Hogwarts castle, creating an undetectable passageway we could use to slip into the school.

I cracked open the door slightly and peered through the slit into the room beyond. It looked like some sort of storage area, infested with heaps of rubbish and broken furniture. Amid the detritus sat a thin man with a large hooked nose and greasy hair, his wand tapping impatiently against his leg. I slipped out of the Cabinet, sidearm up and trained at the Oscar. "Identify."

"_Expecto Patronum_."

A silvery doe emerged from his wand, the same doe we had seen at 12 Grimmauld Place. I gave him a single nod and put a finger to my throat mic. "Contact established with Metatron. We're clear."

"Copy that, we're coming in."

Jeff was the first one through, the giant AA-12 cradled in his arms. Hermione and Ariana were right behind him. The four members of Sierra Two were the next ones to cross the threshold, stepping awkwardly out of the Cabinet.

While Sierra One hailed from the UK, our counterparts in Sierra Two hailed from Hong Kong. Sierra Two's ranking officer was Knight, a former Auror (a member of the White Hat's counter-terror team) affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Magic. As an Auror, he brought to the table considerable combat skills, as well as some expertise in tracking targets and utilizing non-lethal takedowns.

The second member through was Jester, a lean Chinese man whose callsign originated from the Glasgow smile cut into his right cheek. An ex-Delta Alpha Operator, he had been involved in various hotspots around the world before the war broke out and was rated with pretty much any weapon that holds an edge.

Next came Fox, Sierra Two's pyromaniac and resident explosives expert. A former Death Eater, the blonde had defected in the early stages of the war after her colleagues unknowingly detained, tortured, and executed her younger brother, who had been falsely accused of collaborating with non-magicals. She and Jester used to be adversaries, and they had a complicated history together that the rest of us liked to speculate about.

The last and newest member of Sierra Two was Cho. She had been brought on board to replace Duchess, who had been killed during Sierra Two's assault on Sovereign One. While it was risky, adding an unknown factor to the unit, she was the best replacement we could come up with on such short notice; we didn't exactly have a large pool of qualified candidates to choose from. According to Harry, she did a brief stint with the Delta Alphas before she was captured and incarcerated. It would have to do.

Sirius was the last one to step out of the Cabinet. He stopped short when he saw Metatron and a frown soured his handsome face. The air pressure in the room tripled as the two men glowered at each other. Sirius was the first to break the uncomfortable silence. "Snape," he growled.

"Sirius," Metatron growled back.

God, get a room already. "Sierra is in." I turned to the others. "Let's move; Sauron's not going to kill himself for us, you know."

The two men wasted a couple more seconds in their juvenile alpha male stare-down for dominance. "The other teams are on their way," Sirius said through clenched teeth.

Metatron nodded stiffly and waved a hand in dismissal. I found the room's sole door and cracked it open, checking for hostiles before slipping through into the corridor beyond. The rest of our cell followed; Metatron would stay behind to secure the Cabinet for the others. As the last person, Sirius, stepped out into the corridor, the door shut on its own accord and vanished without a trace. Huh.

We systematically swept the Cabinet floor for hostiles as the other cells made their way into the castle. Juliet was the first to arrive, followed by Alpha. By the time we secured the floor, Juliet and Alpha were gathered in the corridor, keeping watch as Metatron sealed the Cabinet room one last time. One of Alpha's White Hats, the one with glasses and untidy black hair, whispered, "Cover your sectors. Good luck."

With that, we split off from the other cells, moving to cover the dungeons. Minutes crawled by as we crept through the corridors, silently searching each room we passed. Empty classrooms and blank blackboards greeted us, the castle hauntingly silent and still.

I had just gained access to the dungeons, exiting the access stairwell, when Juliet One Actual's voice shattered the silence. "Contact, contact, Sauron, Great H – "

A dozen hooded figures materialized in the hallway in front of me.

I had enough time to channel Ackbar and blurt out "It's a trap" before the Oscar unit unleashed a torrent of fire in our direction.

Sirius's response proved to be a bit more useful: he threw up a force field, stopping the approaching inferno cold through pure force of will. "Torrance," he growled through clenched teeth. "Activate your – "

I missed the rest of Sirius's sentence because Jeff chose that moment to unleash his automatic shotgun on the Oscar unit, saturating the enclosed corridor with supersonic lead. The nearest Oscar, the one with the front row seat to the gun show, saw what was coming and threw up a shield.

The Goblin wrought 12 gauge slugs blew through the shield like it wasn't there, tearing the wizard behind it in half. The slugs were made from Goblin steel, each individual round hand-carved with an intricate series of runes and hand-dipped in Acromantula venom, essentially turning each shell into a dual stage bullet. The runes caused each round to discharge its payload of venom upon impact, obliterating Oscar's shield and allowing the bullet's explosive core to pass through unimpeded.

Oh yes, the toys were definitely the best perk of working with Task Force Phoenix; my assault rifle was loaded with similarly modified rounds.

Thirty-two miniature explosions rocked the hallway, tearing indiscriminately through stone, wood, flesh, and bone. Jeff casually popped the drum mag as the dust settled over twelve disassembled corpses, replacing it with a standard eight round mag.

" – Never mind," Sirius finished lamely.

It took me a few moments to shake off the adrenaline rush before I noticed Nucleus's voice buzzing in my ear. " – Actual, report in, _now_."

No response.

"Juliet One Actual, respond."

Another terse second ticked by before Alpha One Actual's voice, calm and collected, cut through the white noise. "Contact, contact, we have engaged enemy forces. Could use some help. Entrance Courtyard."

"Copy that," Hermione said. "We're on the way."

We had just turned around and taken two steps back up the staircase when we got jumped by another Oscar patrol. They formed a waist-high barricade of stone across the top of the stairs and commenced bombarding us with spells.

"Snape," Sirius growled as he swatted aside an incoming spell. "It has to be Snape. How else did they know we're coming? I'm going to gut that traitorous little fu – "

"Not now!" Hermione cut Sirius off as power surged through her wand and blew a hole in Oscar's little wall.

Sierra Two and Sirius seized the opportunity and flashed though the gap, moving so fast that I blinked and missed it. One second there were a dozen Oscar standing at the top of the stairs, depressingly whole and hearty. The next, there were a dozen leaking bodies strewn across the stairs, each corpse bearing disturbingly precise and surgical lacerations. Sierra Two, along with Sirius, was long gone.

Well, damn.

"Let's go, let's go!"

We followed Sierra Two, or rather, the trail of corpses Sierra Two left behind, at a more cautious pace. Since Sierra Two was comprised entirely of White Hats, they were able to punch a hole through enemy lines at magically enhanced speeds to help Alpha Team. It was up to us to mop up whatever hostile forces they missed; while Hermione and Ariana could do the magic super speed thing, Jeff and I couldn't. The two White Hats stayed with us as we made our way through the corridors, keeping our heads on a swivel and checking our corners. Fire teams stick together, no matter what. While picking up Sierra Two's leftovers wasn't exactly glamorous work, I have to say, it was somewhat refreshing to have another unit clear a path for us.

We had just entered the Great Hall when Jeff lifted his AA-12. "Contact, by the statues."

A single Oscar stepped casually out from a cluster of sculptures occupying the centre of the room. He glanced at me with uncaring scarlet eyes and flicked his wand in my direction with long, spider-like hands before I could get my assault rifle into position.

As the Killing Curse leapt from his wand and homed relentlessly in on my position, my left forearm flashed up, parallel to the ground. I dropped my HK416 and ran a finger along the clear strip of ballistic material mounted along the compression sleeve and said, "Activate."

The spell built into the collapsible tactical shield (known as a CTACS) activated, the plastic strip expanding into a block of ballistic material that covered me from head to knees. Like our body armour, the CTACS was a product of Arthur's magical enhancement services, enchanted to be lightweight yet resilient, theoretically able to deflect both armour-piercing rounds and industrial strength combat spells.

Theoretically.

Jeff's automatic shotgun was already cycling through rounds when the Killing Curse smashed into my shield like a runaway lorry. My left arm went numb as the impact shattered the CTACS, the force of the spell lifting me off my feet.

But I survived. Still on my back, I keyed my throat mike and wheezed, "All units, contact. Sauron. Great Hall."

Three explosions rocked the Great Hall as Sauron shifted the gravitational pull along the slugs' flight path, pulling Jeff's shells straight into the floor. Jeff bit out a muffled curse as the enhanced gravity field overtook his position, crushing him to the stone tiles.

As Jeff went down, Hermione and Ariana went airborne and swarmed Sauron's position, unleashing spells as quickly as they could feasibly pronounce the incantations.

And Sauron, his wand a blur, swatted every single one of the White Hat's spells out of the sky.

I pushed myself up and pulled the Fairbairn-Sykes knife from the sheath on the small of my back. Time to see how he does up close and personal.

Sauron blazed through an array of combat spells, unleashing a torrent of colour at my friends. A single strobe of red caught Ariana in the chest, blasting her into the nearest wall.

I approached the Oscar from behind, careful to stay out of his field of vision.

Sauron blocked another three spells from Hermione. As he returned fire and nailed Hermione mid-flight with a flash of purple, I slid smoothly under a statue's outstretched arm and –

His hand snaked out as I struck, catching my wrist and twisting. There was a burst of pain and I lost my grip on the knife, the blade clattering to the floor. With a growl, Sauron spun me in a half circle and pinned me against him, crushing my back into his chest. His right hand locked around my neck and squeezed, cutting off my airflow. I tried to worm my way out, but the man's grip was constant and immovable. Without the proper leverage, there wasn't much that I could do.

Leverage. I needed leverage. What could I use for –

The statues.

There were eight of them. Four of them were holding assault rifles.

Shit.

It was Juliet.

The arm around my neck flexed, tightening.

My fingers scrabbled uselessly against the appendage.

_Need. Air._

Sauron's wand brushed against my cheek. Traced lazy lines up and down my face. Moist breathes on my neck. A quiet voice slithered into my ear. "Any last words?"

Closest statue. In front of me. Just within reach.

"Yeah," I choked out. "Abracadabra, bitch."

And I planted both feet against the statue before me and kicked back with all my strength. I got lucky. Sauron's breath exploded from his lungs as he slammed into the statue behind us, the impact loosening the arm clamped across my neck. It gave me just enough leverage to drive the back of my head into Sauron's nonexistent nose. He let go of me completely, instinctively clutching his face. Greedily gulping down fresh oxygen, I dropped away from Sauron and twisted slightly, pulling the M1911 from my holster. I brought the barrel in line with his chest as I landed on my back.

Before I could squeeze the trigger, he said something, something that sounded like mix between a hiss and a growl.

The floor beneath me collapsed as a huge… something erupted from the stone tiles. I dropped about four metres into the cavity, bouncing off something soft and scaly before hitting the sinkhole's rocky floor. As far as landings go, it wasn't too bad; a few scrapes and bruises, nothing broken. As I willed my battered body to respond, the something launched itself into the room above me, disappearing into the Great Hall in a blur of green scales.

"Basilisk! Eyes down!" I heard Hermione scream.

Fuck me.

There are two things to worry about when dealing with a Basilisk. The first threat is pretty obvious: being bitten by a poisonous snake is bad. Being bitten by one that's twenty metres long is worse. The second threat was slightly less obvious; you don't usually see "eyes" listed as cause of death. Direct visual contact with the Basilisk's eyes results in a complete marble makeover, the same makeover the poor bastards in Juliet got to experience first hand.

Basilisks. The damn things were impossible to fight.

"Stay put, I'm going to get Tori."

"No! Jeff, get back here!"

"Watch your six – shit!"

My team needed me. Dust choked the air around me as I pushed myself to my feet, invading my mouth and nostrils. I dissolved in a series of coughs, threatening to hack up a lung.

Alpha One Actual's voice cut through comm. "Sierra One, friendlies approaching from the west. Hold your fire."

There was an almighty crash and the air above me turned into a light show of hexes and curses. The chatter of several assault rifles joined the bass roar of Jeff's AA-12. Reinforcements had arrived.

Time to get back into the fight.

Wheezing slightly, I holstered my sidearm and approached the crater's craggy wall. Sinking my fingers into the crevices created by the Basilisk's explosive exit, I scaled the four-metre drop and –

A body narrowly missed me as I ascended, its skull cracking sharply against the sinkhole's lip before falling past me.

It wasn't one of ours. Oscar had brought reinforcements.

I had barely cleared the crater when a stern voice behind me said, "Torrance, down!"

I dropped and a spell sizzled through the space I had occupied. A severe-looking White Hat in emerald robes deftly deflected the spell and fired her own back at the sender. The spell hit the Oscar squarely in the chest. His eyes widened and he clawed at his chest, sand spilling from his lips and nostrils. Knowing McGonagall, she'd probably transformed the air in his lungs into sand. Transfiguration, the White Hats called it. The Oscar collapsed and twitched a few times before going completely still.

I got to my feet. "Thanks. Have you seen J – on your six!"

Two Oscars barrelled towards McGonagall's unprotected back. The man, a squat and lumpy fellow, conjured a dozen broadswords out of thin air and sent them hurtling toward McGonagall. At the same time, the second Oscar, a stocky little woman, targeted McGonagall from above, a swarm of snakes arcing down on the White Hat's position.

McGonagall only had enough time to get off one spell. She elected to go after the swords. With a quick snap of her wand, the blades warped, the edges moulding into aggressive slopes and curves. Feathers and skin sprouted from the semi-organic masses, metal giving way to cells.

The resulting flight of eagles peeled away from McGonagall, deviating from their original flight path to intercept the incoming snakes. With ear-splitting shrieks, they hit the serpents, talons and beaks tearing through scales and flesh, thinning the herd.

But the birds couldn't stop them all. A couple leaked through the avian screen, gravity drawing them inexorably closer to McGonagall. She swung around, her wand rising. Too late. The snakes' mouths yawned open as they got within striking distance, fangs extended.

Their wedge-shaped heads exploded before they made contact with McGonagall, the .45 calibre rounds from my M1911 completely obliterating bone, fang, and brain tissue. The White Hat neatly swatted the remains aside just as the female Oscar reached her. She came in fast, a blue aura engulfing her wand. With a roar, she unleashed a shotgun blast of ice crystals point blank at McGonagall's chest.

Moments before the ice made contact, McGonagall's image blurred slightly, the weathered lines on her face melting away. An elegant and beautiful young lady replaced the McGonagall I knew, age giving way to youth and, apparently, enhanced reflexes; she twisted away from the incoming projectiles, catching the blast in her right arm rather than her chest. While this probably saved her life, the impact shattered McGonagall's arm and smashed the wand out of her hand. The female Oscar accelerated into a streak of black and caught the airborne wand as she swept by the White Hat. The male Oscar, sensing an opening, took aim with wand in his right hand and screamed "_Avada_ – "

McGonagall blurred across the fifteen metres that separated her from the Oscar before he could finish his incantation. Flowing around him, she seized the wrist of his wand hand with a crushing grip and kicked his feet out from under him. As his feet left the floor and he went fully horizontal midair, her broken forearm stitched itself back together and sprouted striped fur. Her hand expanded and filled out, remoulding into a fleshy shape resembling a giant cat's paw. Claws sprouted from the tips of the paw, ten centimetres long and razor sharp. With a roar, she plunged all four claws into his chest and, keeping her grip on his right wrist, knelt as she accelerated the back of his right shoulder into her knee. With his entire weight concentrated at a single point, the shoulder tore apart with a wet pop as McGonagall drove his right wrist and chest into the stone floor. She scooped up the wand as it fell from his nerveless fingers.

"Amycus!" the female Oscar cried as McGonagall pushed the body aside. The Oscar fixed McGonagall with a murderous gaze. "That was my brother, you bitch."

McGonagall, without taking her eyes off the Oscar, said to me, "Go. Go find your team."

"What about you?"

"I'm going to get my wand back."

I nodded once and turned away just as McGonagall swept her captured wand forward and transformed the Oscar's robes into curtains of molten glass. Turning an eye toward the pitched battle around me, I realized I was on the western edge of a ragged dead zone located between friendly and Oscar forces. A rough series of stone walls crisscrossed the Great Hall on our side, improvised barriers raised by our White Hats. Our mixed force of nineteen White Hats/operators engaged the advancing Oscar horde, spells and tracers burning through the air.

With so much movement, how was I supposed to…

The AA-12 roared once somewhere to the east.

Right. Find the automatic shotgun, find Jeff.

First things first, a plan. I could pick my way across the battlefield until I regrouped with Sierra One, playing hide and seek with Oscar forces along the way. Stay behind barricades, pop up occasionally to get my bearings, maybe neutralize a few unsuspecting hostiles.

Okay, so it probably wasn't the best plan given the circumstances, but it was the fastest way I could think of to rendezvous with Sierra One. I pressed my side against the nearest stone wall and made my way east. I had barely gone twenty steps when the wall behind me shattered, an Oscar crashing through the rock. I turned in one smooth motion and plugged him twice in the chest. As he fell, I added another round to his head. Satisfied that he was dead I turned and –

Ran into huge figure in black. Heart thundering, I tried to bring my sidearm to bear –

The figure seized my arms and crushed me against him, pinning my arms. "Tori, it's me."

I stopped struggling and relaxed into his chest, relief flooding my system. He was alright. A few moments passed before Ariana coughed delicately.

Right. War zone. Jeff released his hold and said, "Got a present for you." He tossed me the HK416 I had dropped earlier.

I caught the assault rifle and brass checked the weapon. One in the chamber, twenty-nine in the mag. Perfect. "I think I love you."

He smirked. "Then don't lose it this time."

Properly armed, I popped out from behind cover and loosed a quick burst at the approaching hostiles, adding to the storm of goblin-wrought bullets and spells slicing into Oscar's ranks. It wasn't enough. As I watched, Sauron stormed up the middle, smashed through the first barricade, and lit up Alpha One's position at close range. The two Delta operators attached to Alpha One never stood a chance; before they could react, Sauron unleashed two Killing Curses, taking down both Yanks. That left Alpha One's two White Hats to engage Sauron alone. Oscar forces poured through the gap Sauron created, pushing us back. The Great Hall rippled as we gave ground. Windows, doors, any structural weaknesses vanished, melting into solid slabs of rock. Ariana attempted to breach the newly fortified walls, launching a dozen different spells. The resulting explosions barely left a scratch on the stone surface.

We were trapped. Outnumbered. Outgunned. Outmanoeuvred.

Sensing (accurately) that we were buggered, Sauron hissed something. The Oscar horde pulled back slightly, disengaging.

Oh shit.

The Basilisk erupted in our midst, arching over our heads.

Impossible to fight. With Oscar hemming us in, the Basilisk was a death sentence.

Carefully keeping my eyes fixed on the Basilisk's body, I opened fire, scoring hits across the creature's scaled coils. Pinpricks. My bullets didn't even slow the Basilisk down. It struck, sinking its fangs into one of the JTF2 blokes attached to Alpha. He convulsed and – fuck, don't look into its eyes!

"Watch your left flank – "

"Track it, track it – "

"What the hell? Spells aren't working – "

"Oh God, oh God, oh God – "

"Shit, Carbon's down, I repeat Carbon's down."

Jesus, that thing was killing us.

"Sierra Two, on me. Knives and chains. Prepare to blind and restrain the Basilisk."

"No, Knight, wait, what are you – "

Knight broke cover and stepped forward, pointing his wand at the Basilisk's eyes. As his skin hardened and turned an ashy grey, Knight whispered something and a flash of light leapt from his wand just before he turned completely to stone. The Basilisk roared as black flames wreathed its face, smoke obscuring its eyes.

"Goddammit." Fox pulled a pair of balanced knives from the sheathes strapped to her forearms, taking one in each hand. Keeping her palms flat, she simultaneously released both with a flick of her wrists. The blades twisted and spun, swinging out wide before changing trajectory and homing in on the Basilisk's head. Straightening out as they made their final approach, the two blades sliced through the smoke and found their mark, burying themselves in the Basilisk's eye sockets.

As the Basilisk roared in pain, hundreds of barbed daggers emerged from Cho's wand, each trailing a thin chain that intertwined with her fingers. The wave of metal swept over the Basilisk, the daggers anchoring themselves along its upper face and jaw. A red glow spread over both Cho's arms, and she wrenched the chains downward, pile driving the Basilisk into the ground.

As the Basilisk's head slammed into the stone floor, Jeff calmly walked up to the creature, jammed his AA-12 into an eye socket and inserted an explosive round directly into its brain. The Basilisk's skull contained the blast, the hydrostatic shock and resulting shockwave turning the organic structure contained within to mush. The Basilisk went through a few moments of post-mortem twitching before going still.

A stunned silence descended upon the enemy formation, giving us time to reload and assess our losses. Juliet cell was gone; the only survivor was their guide, a mousy man named Peter. Alpha cell was down to fifty percent strength; Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Neville were all that remained of the initial eight-man team. McGonagall, Alpha's guide, had survived as well, having retaken her wand in a furious custody battle with the stocky female Oscar. Sierra cell was fortunate and had survived relatively unscathed; aside from Knight, everyone else was still more or less in one piece. Fourteen against two hundred. This was not going to end well.

Sauron broke the silence with a roar, his voice burning with fury and disbelief. Spurred into action by Sauron's voice, the Oscar horde descended on us, an unending wave of naked aggression and promised violence.

This was it. Harry nodded to each of us. "It's been an honour."

Ron gave his both his wands an experimental flick. "Oh, shut up."

Neville pulled a longsword out of the scabbard strapped to his back. "Let's get to work."

And we jumped the barricade and charged the incoming tide of enemy forces. We were not going to go gently into the good night. If we were going to die, we were going to take as many of the fuckers with us as we could. Maybe one of us would good lucky and break through. Maybe one of us could reach Sauron. Maybe one of us would get lucky and kill him before we were overwhelmed.

Maybe.

We hit the wall of Oscar, firing into the crowd, trying to create space, trying to blast a way through. Cutting down dozens of Oscars, we were ten metres away from Sauron's position when enemy forces finally consolidated their ranks and closed around us, hemming us in, sapping our forward momentum. There wasn't anything we could do. There were too many of them. Having contained our advance, Oscar forces surged forward and –

"This is Marauder One Actual. Friendlies coming in from above."

Four figures smashed through the Great Hall's ceiling at terminal velocity, impacting among Oscar's ranks. I caught a glimpse of broken bodies strewn across the floor before the eight White Hats of Marauder One lit up the Oscars around them. As the Oscars orientated toward the new threat, we struck and everything descended into chaos.

I was in the process of double tapping a particularly nasty Oscar in the back when Kingsley's voice boomed unexpectedly in my ear. "Task Force Phoenix inbound in three… two… one…"

Between Marauder's dynamic entry and the arrival of Task Force Phoenix, the Great Hall emptied rather quickly. A rather anti-climatic end to our rendition of the charge of the light brigade, I know. By the time the dust settled, Sauron was gone and fifty Oscar fatalities littered the Great Hall. The cacophony of battle drifted in through the holes in the roof as Marauder One sealed the room, giving us a few moments to take a breather and patch up minor injuries.

"Is everyone alright?" asked one of the Marauders, a beautiful woman with bright green eyes.

"Yeah, we're alright, Mom," Harry said. He sighed. "I'm never going to hear the end of this am I? It'll always be 'Harry, remember that one time we had to step in and save you from Voldemort?'"

Another one of the Marauders, a tall thin man who wore glasses, reached out and mussed Harry's hair. "No, no you're not."

Harry's mother swatted the thin man's arm. "James, stop it. Go help Sirius put up the protective enchantments."

"Yes, Lily, on my way." He gave her a peck on the cheek and left to assist Sirius.

"How did the shield work out?" Arthur Weasley asked me.

I grinned. "Worked just like you said it would. Blocked a Killing Curse. Damn near broke my arm though."

He winced. "Ah, sorry about that. Didn't think about shock absorption. I'll have to work on that."

Molly Weasley gently pushed past Arthur. "Move aside, dear." She looked over my collection of cuts and bruises, shook her head in disapproval, and began running her wand over my injuries. "How did a nice Muggle girl like you end up in this mess?"

I closed my eyes and cracked a smile as her wand whisked away the pain and stiffness accumulated in my joints and muscles. " 'Join the army' they said. 'See the world' they said. Thought I'd be driving lorries in a supply convoy or something. Never imagined I'd end up in Special Forces."

A sadness touched Molly's eyes when she found the scars winding up my legs. With visible effort, she forced herself to move on and finish patching me up. Wiping her hands briskly on her robe, she stood. "There, good as new." And she moved on to Neville.

Molly worked fast; it didn't take long for her to render us combat effective once more. Ariana glanced at Harry. "What now?"

Harry took off his glasses and wiped grime off the lenses with the corner of his sleeve. "Voldemort's still out there. Let's go hunting." 

With that, Sirius and James dropped their protective enchantments and we exited the Great Hall, heading toward the screams and explosions echoing outside the castle. Cutting through the entrance hall, I pushed open the main doors and –

Emerged into full-blown battle. Hundreds of Task Force Phoenix operators had engaged a larger force composed of Oscars, giants, and trolls. Sauron's Death Eater division. The battle had devolved into an unending series of small unit skirmishes; friendly and enemy forces were hopelessly mixed together, with most of the action centred around sixty large-scale duels.

We split into individual fire teams to cover more ground. Sierra Two went airborne to provide overwatch. Peter, Sirius, and Marauder One went west, circling around the outer edges of the battle. McGonagall, Harry, Ron, Neville and Ginny went east. Herimone, Ariana, Jeff and I headed right into the thick of things. Cloaked, we ghosted among the combatants, keeping an eye out for Sauron and taking out targets of opportunity.

"Incoming hippogriffs, dozen of them," Cho transmitted.

A rough voice responded. "Hold yer fire, Buckbeak's jus' making' a delivery."

Twelve hippogriffs dropped out of the night sky, diving toward a large group of Oscar clustered around an absolutely massive White Hat. Twice the height of an average man, Hagrid was a half-giant, a wizard with all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses. I assumed his mother was the giantess in the relationship (due to certain… physical limitations, I don't believe there's a way for a giant and a witch to naturally conceive). Can't imagine the sex being any good, but hey, whatever works for them.

The Hippogriffs released their cargo at an altitude of fifty metres, dropping an enormous crate the size of a London Bus. Something tore the crate apart from the inside and two shapes emerged from the cloud of splinters. A spider the size of a Volkswagen and a colossal three-headed dog crashed into the Oscar crowd and began tearing apart whatever they could sink their teeth into.

One of the Death Eaters, a bloke with a thin black moustache, somehow produced an executioner's axe from thin air. When the Hippogriffs pulled out of their dive, the Oscar leapt twenty metres into the air, latched onto one of the eagle/horse hybrids, and buried his axe into the creature's flank. The Hippogriff screamed in pain and fell, ploughing into the ground at high speed and gouging out a shallow trough in the dirt and grass. Although the Death Eater lost his axe on impact, he somehow managed to maintain his hold on the Hippogriff and set upon the wounded creature with unrestrained brutality. Laughing, the Oscar sang a single word over and over: "_Crucio_." The Hippogriff writhed and cried out, red energy crackling over its body.

"BUCKBEAK!" Hagrid roared. Without a moment's hesitation, he broke into a run and smashed straight through the Oscar force between him and the Hippogriff, physically throwing enemy wizards out of the way with his bare hands. He tanked at least a dozen spells, the magic sliding uselessly off his skin. When Hagrid got within effective range, the crossbow came off his back. Trampling the Oscar before him, Hagrid aimed and fired the weapon.

The one metre bolt slammed into Buckbeak's tormenter, ripping through the small of his back and out of his stomach. He gurgled, pulling uselessly at the wooden rod buried in his abdomen when Hagrid loomed up behind him. Hagrid palmed the Death Eater's head with one massive hand and gripped the Oscar's shoulders with the other. With a roar of fury, Hagrid ripped the Oscar apart and tossed aside both pieces of the body. Behind him, the Acromantula and the three-headed dog rampaged happily through the remaining Oscar. It looked like he had things under control.

"Luna, be advised, three giants moving in on your left flank."

"Thanks, Cho, I see them. I'm afraid I have been seriously injured and am currently incapacitated. If you have time, could you send someone to deal with the giants?" Luna said this as if she were asking the wait staff for the daily special, her dreamy voice drifting over the comm.

"We have them. ICU Thirteen inbound."

I popped an Oscar in the back of his head and turned, scanning the battlefield. Where was… there. Three giants lumbered toward a prone figure surrounded by five Oscar bodies. Luna tried pushing herself to her feet, rising about ten centimetres before collapsing. The closest giant raised his mace, preparing to swing –

A body wrapped in blue flames slammed through the giant's chest and cratered the ground behind him. A woman with auburn hair emerged from the crater and threw a spell over her shoulder, disintegrating the giant's corpse in a cloud of ashes. A winged figure hit the second giant, vertically bisecting the creature. As the third giant gaped at the demise of his two compatriots, a blonde woman landed lightly on his shoulder and stuck a packet of C-4 to his neck, right on his carotid artery. She leapt away and detonated the C-4 with an explosive spell, littering the battlefield with organic matter.

Threat eliminated, the man's black wings retracted into his back and a sickly grey glow gathered in his right hand. Tendrils of that sickly grey light snaked out and touched the dead Oscar, causing the corpses to twitch and shudder before crawling awkwardly to their feet. Ah. A necromancer. The two women of ICU Thirteen and the zombies covered the man as he began patching Luna up.

"Lavender's down, Lavender's down. There are multiple trolls closing in on her location."

"Who's the closest unit?" Royal asked.

"Uh, uh, uh… Remus is the closest – "

"A… little…busy…here…" Remus growled into the comm.

Hermione was the first to spot the injured White Hat. "Cho, this is Hermione. We're a minute out."

Jester's voice joined our conversation. "Sierra One, we'll run interference with the trolls and keep them off Lavender. You find their handler."

"Copy that."

And we sprinted toward Lavender and the trolls, darting around enemy combatants and stepping over bodies. One of the trolls reached Lavender, wrapping one massive hand around her neck and lifting her unconscious form into the air. He bared his teeth, preparing to devour her face.

Something glinted in the moonlight and the troll's arm separated from his body. Lavender and the severed appendage dropped quietly to the ground. The troll goggled at the stump before two throwing knives grew out of his orbital sockets. A scream emerged from its throat just before its head separated from his neck.

Jester and Fox had arrived.

As a fresh wave of trolls attempted to reach Lavender (apparently in an attempt to devour the White Hat), Jester and Fox shed their Invisibility Cloaks.

"KILL THEM!" an Oscar roared, cowering safely behind his wall of slavering carnivorous monsters.

Ah, there you are.

"Got him, engaging."

As Jeff and I thinned the troll's numbers with concentrated fire, Hermione shifted into wisps of white smoke and took to the air, raining spells down on the Oscar. He smiled contemptuously in the general direction of the White Hat, easily turning her spells aside.

He never saw Ariana, who had tunnelled under the trolls and emerged behind him. The shadows around her roiled, bladed tendrils emerging from the depths of the tunnel. They set upon the dark wizard and dragged him under, his screams ending abruptly as the earth swallowed him. All that remained of the Oscar was his purple turban, which the tendrils had somehow missed. Ariana briskly brushed the dirt from her cloak. "Well, that was fun."

"Sierra, Marauder, this is Alpha. Engaging Voldemort. Look for red sparks."

"Go, we'll mop up here," Jester said.

"Roger that. Join us if you have time."

And we took off, following the shower of red sparks.

"Harry, you've got another Oscar approaching your position… shit, it's Bellatrix."

"Goddammit. Copy that, Cho. Ron, sorry mate, I need you and Ginny to keep her off of us. Neville and I will take care of Voldemort. Hermione, where are you?"

"On our way!"

We edged our way around a particularly nasty clash between Bill and an Oscar with pointed teeth before we saw them. Alpha had engaged Sauron and his female companion, whom I recognized as the Queen of Hearts from the most-wanted playing cards issued by Task Force Phoenix.

The four White Hats in Alpha were some of the best operators we had in Task Force Phoenix. And they were losing to Sauron and Bellatrix. Neville was already down, unconscious or worse. Harry stood between his fallen friend and Sauron, desperately trying to keep Oscar from landing the finishing blow. Behind him, Bellatrix's wand slashed through the air, ensnaring Ron and Ginny in a sea of barbed wire.

As soon as I got within my weapon's effective range, I aimed down the sights of my assault rifle –

Without even looking at us, Sauron snapped his wand in our direction and a blanket of red light dropped over Hermione, Ariana, Jeff, and me. My body locked up, my muscles refusing to obey my commands. My HK16 and Jeff's AA-12 shattered as Sauron lifted our frozen bodies ten metres off the ground.

"Deal with you later," he hissed.

Sauron drew his wand back and scored a hit on Harry, etching a jagged gash across Harry's forehead. "So you're the one? Disappointing."

He hit Harry with another spell, and Harry went down, coughing up a mouthful of blood.

Ron, seeing his friend's predicament, ripped free of the barbed wire and aimed his wand at Voldemort's back. Before he could get the spell off, Bellatrix produced a silver knife and rammed it through his wrist.

Beside me, a muffled scream of anger emerged from Hermione's throat. She struggled uselessly against Sauron's spell, her muscles straining against invisible bonds.

"And so it ends." Sauron drew his wand back. "_Avada – _"

James appeared out of nowhere and introduced Sauron's face to his right hook. As Sauron staggered back, Lily and Peter blinked into view next to Harry. Lily immediately took charge, ordering Peter to get Neville to safety while she took care of Harry. An odd expression crossed Peter's face and he hesitated, as if he didn't want to leave. Then he took Neville's limp arms and began dragging the downed White Hat away from the fight.

Meanwhile, James was making a fight of it with Sauron, blocking most spells and sidestepping the rest. Somehow, James managed to slip in a few curses and suddenly he was on the offensive, directing a symphony of destructive magic toward Sauron, his movements casually devastating. James gave as good as he got, forcing Sauron to shore up his defences to the detriment of his offensive spellwork. The White Hat laughed. "Is this all you've got, Voldemort?"

Curse after curse smashed into Sauron's shield and eroded Sauron's defensive array bit by bit until a single Killing Curse leaked through. Sauron shifted at the last second and the curse burned through the space his head had occupied, missing him by millimetres. Fury swept across the Oscar's face and he growled, "Peter, would you kindly kill this blood traitor?"

And Peter Pettigrew, Juliet cell's guide, dropped Neville and planted a Killing Curse in James' back.

Sauron watched James fall before turning toward Lily. "Stand aside."

She held her ground, standing squarely between Sauron and her wounded son. "No."

"This is my last warning – "

Lily gave him one look of pure defiance and snarled, "Go fuck yourself."

And she darted forward, her wand blazing.

Sauron's face darkened. "So be it."

And, before Lily could get her spell off, he struck.

As Lily crumpled, my comm erupted in static.

It took me a few moments to realize it was a voice.

It took me a few moments to realize it was a wordless scream.

It took me a few moments to realize it was the sound of a heart breaking.

It took me a few moments to realize the voice belonged to Metatron.

And Metatron's blurred shape broke the sound barrier as he smashed into Sauron.

"Peter. So it was you," Sirius growled. And he followed Metatron with his own supersonic strike on Peter. There was no magic involved; Sirius simply wrapped both his arms around Peter as he passed. The sudden acceleration caused Peter's neck to whiplash and break with a wet snap.

Beside me, Hermione roared and shattered Sauron's spell through pure force of will. She landed badly; breaking the spell had taken its toll and her legs collapsed under her as soon as she hit the ground.

Bellatrix blocked Ginny's curse and disarmed her before flicking a hand in Harry's direction. A silver knife, its blade stained with blood, cut through the air. Bellatrix had seen Hermione escape and had decided to finish what Sauron started before the White Hat could interfere. The knife was moving too fast; it wasn't humanly possible to stop it before it reached Harry.

Not humanly possible.

Dobby warped in between the knife and Harry, the blade catching him in the chest.

Harry caught the elf's little body as he fell, cradling Dobby to his chest. He blinked tears out of his eyes as Dobby gasped, "I... was brave...wasn't... I?"

Harry gave him a watery smile. "Yes, yes you were."

And with one final shudder, Dobby went still.

Laughter bubbled to Bellatrix's lips and she snapped her fingers. Dobby's body disintegrated and the knife's point oriented toward Harry's chest. "And now, Potter, time to – "

Ginny physically tackled Bellatrix before the Oscar could finish her sentence. The knife dropped unceremoniously to the ground, the blade embedding in the earth. With a howl of anger, Bellatrix turned her wand on Ginny and created separation. As Ginny stumbled back, the knife ripped free and rocketed at her unprotected abdomen.

The knife was millimetres away from Ginny's flesh when a hand caught the blade barehanded. And Molly Weasley, channelling her inner Ellen Ripley, roared, "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"

Molly returned the knife to sender, sinking the blade into Bellatrix's shoulder. Bellatrix re-evaluated the new threat and brought her full attention to bear on Molly. The two women spiralled up and away from the battlefield, locked in mortal combat.

"Uh, I almost died, too," Ron said to no one in particular as Hermione pulled him to his feet.

Shaking her head, Hermione turned her attention to the spell holding Ariana, Jeff, and me hostage.

Metres away, Sauron faced off against Metatron and Sirius. Utilizing wolf pack tactics, Metatron and Sirius had managed to keep Sauron off balance. Metatron darted in at Sauron's flank. As Sauron turned toward Metatron and raised his shield, Sirius attacked from behind, forcing Sauron to disengage Metatron and engage the new threat. As Sauron turned toward Sirius, Metatron swept in on Sauron's flank again and –

A massive snake leapt from Sauron's robes and sank its fangs into Metatron's shoulder, pumping venom into his bloodstream. Metatron staggered back and dropped his wand.

Sauron's wand slashed through the air and the snake teleported behind Sirius, delivering the same poisonous strike. The snake slithered back into Sauron's robes as Sirius fell, the venom overwhelming his system.

"Sirius!" With no plans and no backup, Harry rushed Sauron, unleashing any and every curse he could think of. Blocking the incoming storm of magic, Sauron patiently waited until Harry was a metre away before casually knocking the White Hat off his feet. Harry lost his wand on impact, the slim piece of wood bouncing away, lost in the battlefield. The Oscar's right hand stretched toward Harry. "Nagini, dinner."

A familiar wedge-shaped head slithered out of Sauron's sleeve, wrapping around the Oscar's arm. The snake oriented toward Harry, rearing back to –

Neville's thrown longsword tumbled end over end and the blade cleaved smoothly through the snake's flesh, cleanly decapitating the reptile. Neville himself collapsed, having used the last of his energy to save Harry.

Hermione finally broke through Sauron's spell, breaking Ariana, Jeff and me out of our magical cage. I landed in a crouch, absorbing the impact with my knees.

Sauron roared and his wand darted forward –

Jeff's Chiappa Rhino 50DS revolver roared the same time my M1911 did, forcing Sauron's wand to change direction to block the incoming rounds.

And Harry's hands shot up, wrapping around Sauron's neck. Wisps of smoke curled from Harry's fingers, and it took me a moment to realize that it wasn't Harry that was burning. It was Sauron. Harry's hands shifted slightly, revealing cracked and blistered skin. Sauron roared with pain and, in one desperate movement, planted the tip of his wand in Harry's chest. "_AVADA KEDAV_ – "

Harry's hand surged forward, and latched onto Sauron's wrist. Sauron's arm spasmed, giving Harry the leverage he needed to wrench the wand off target. The wand's tip swung around and –

" – _RA_."

The blast of green caught Sauron under the chin, throwing him up and away from Harry. He smashed into the ground with bone-crushing force, coming to a halt at my feet.

At the same time, Bellatrix's mangled body fell out of the sky.

A relative sort of silence fell over our immediate vicinity as Oscars and White Hats alike turned to gape at the two crumpled forms.

I immediately emptied my M1911 into Sauron's body, putting two in his head and the remaining rounds into his chest. Just to be sure. And I made the transmission everyone was waiting for: "Sauron EKIA."

The ground roiled, the earth rolling beneath my feet. A grey hand broke through the dirt, reaching for the sky. Then two. Then four.

"INFERI!"

Shit. A fail-safe, probably. Sauron must have set the Rreanimated to trigger in event of his death. Thousands of them were clawing their way out of shallow graves, clutching at our ankles.

"All units, disengage and pull back." Remus paused for a second. "Head for the willow, I repeat, head for the willow."

"Hold on a sec," Ron said. He lifted his wand and threw an image up over the castle. The Union Jack. "Okay, let's go."

Task Force Phoenix extricated itself from Oscar forces swiftly and efficiently, picking up the wounded and retreating in an orderly fashion toward a particularly fierce looking tree. Ginny and Ron assisted Harry while Ariana and Hermione hauled Neville to his feet, both groups pulling back toward Remus and his willow.

"_Immobulus_," As soon as the tree stopped moving, Remus began directing us toward the base of the willow's trunk. "Come on, come on!"

As the sole intact fire team, Sierra One played rear guard to Task Force Phoenix as they funnelled into the secret passageway beneath the willow. Supporting Neville between them, Hermione and Ariana burned the grass behind us in arcs, throwing up a wall of fire to hold off the horde of Reanimated. Jeff and I were responsible for the leakers, the ones that managed to slip through the White Hat's defensive screen. Through the constant application of incendiary bullets and magic, we were able to hold the Reanimated at bay. Barely. Unable to reach us, some of the Reanimated turned on the remaining Oscar. Screams echoed across the grounds.

"Take Neville and go! We'll cover you!" Jeff and I laid down supressing fire through the dying flames as Hermione and Ariana dove into the tunnel with Neville.

Jeff tapped me on my shoulder as soon as they were through, and I backed into the secret passageway, my sidearm still trained on the Reanimated as Hermione's fire burned out. The tree above us began moving on its own accord as I turned and sprinted down the corridor. There was an odd splintering sound and footsteps echoed around me. They were in the tunnel.

I emerged into a dilapidated old house and screamed, "GO, GO! THEY'RE RIGHT BEHIND ME!"

"Anti-Disapparition Field still up!" someone said over the comm.

Remus swore. "Tonks, how long?"

"Goddammit, we're working on it! Now stop distracting me and let me work!"

"Yes, dear. Sorry, dear. Won't happen again, dear. Alright, listen up, change of plans! Head to Rally Point Omega, it's outside of the field! Go!"

As the rest of Phoenix exited and began retreating toward the exfil zone, I turned and took up a defensive position just outside the passageway, my M1911 blazing. Jeff immediately joined me, setting up shop on the other side of the doorframe. "What are you doing?" I demanded. "Get out of here!"

He picked off a Reanimated with a clean shot to its right orbital socket. "What? Did you say something?"

I felt an odd sense of sense of relief flooded through me. If this was it, I couldn't imagine better company.

I looked at him. "Any regrets?"

Jeff glanced sadly at his revolver. "Wish I had my boomstick."

And the main body of the Reanimated force came roaring into the tunnel.

Between the two of us, we filled the corridor with an absolutely ridiculous amount of fire, slowing the Reanimated's advance with a wall of incendiary rounds. But there was just too many of them. The crush of bodies pushed steadily forward, crawling inch by painful inch closer to our position.

"Sierra One, this is Silhouette Two-One, loitering thirty klicks from your position. We've got a full load of AGM-86s standing by."

"Royal, is Phoenix clear?" I screamed, burning down a Reanimated who had gotten within arm's reach.

"Sierra, no joy. We're moving the wounded as fast as we can."

Dammit.

There was no way we could keep this up. We had to seal off the tunnel. Jeff and I looked at each other. We were exhausted, with no explosives and running low on ammunition. So we did the only thing we could.

"Royal, are all friendly forces clear of Hogsmeade?" I asked.

"Say again, Sierra?"

"Are all friendly forces clear of Hogsmeade?"

"Yes, of course. Why – "

I didn't let Kingsley finish. "Two-One, this is Sierra One. Requesting air strike in Killbox Two Delta."

"Sierra, confirm air strike on village."

"Affirmative, Two-One. Take the whole fucking thing out."

Tonks started to say something before Silhouette Two-One drowned her out.

"Solid copy on that request. Ordnance away. Impact in ten."

Ten seconds. This was it. Jeff reached out for my hand.

I grabbed Jeff, our lips met, my eyes closed, and I was swept up in the intensity of the kiss, time slowing down. My ears popped slightly as the world took on a muted quality, as if I were listening to things through a cotton filter. My heart thundered and Jeff's arms slipped around my waist, pulling me closer. My arms snaked up around his neck and –

Silhouette Two-One, the B-52H loitering near our position, blanketed Hogsmeade with its payload of twenty AGM-86 ALCM cruise missiles.

Which is when I realized something was off. First, there was no telltale wash of heat, no fleeting moment pain. I must admit, not being dead was a pleasant surprise. Then I realized that the explosions were quite a bit softer than I was accustomed to. And then there was … was that applause?

I opened my eyes.

Jeff and I were standing on Serenity One-Seven's open loading ramp, the wind tearing at our clothes. Brilliant flashes lit up the horizon as the cruise missiles obliterated Hogsmeade. Hermione and Ariana took their hands off our shoulders and stepped back into the hold, revealing twenty or so Phoenix operators behind us. They joined in the applause pouring out of the cargo hold, accompanied by a few catcalls and wolf whistles. Jeff and I grinned at our audience and took a bow before joining our comrades inside the aircraft. The loading ramp whined closed behind us, England disappearing from view.

Turns out Tonks and her team had managed to take down the anti-teleportation spell just as Silhouette Two-One launched its payload of cruise missiles, giving Hermione and Ariana just enough time to teleport Jeff and me out of harm's way. Thank God for small miracles.

As Serenity One-Seven exited British airspace, Molly and the necromancer from ICU Thirteen began patching up our wounded while the rest of us began stowing our gear. Neville was the first to be processed by our medical professionals, followed by Harry and Ron. It looked like they were going to be okay.

We got back to Aalborg Air Base and took an official tally of our losses. Half of Task Force Phoenix was listed as killed or missing in action, including Sirius, Snape, James, Lily, and Knight. With another thirty percent were wounded, Phoenix was basically sidelined for the foreseeable future. In fact, while individual fire teams still carried out covert operations, Phoenix as a whole didn't see action for the rest of the war. With Tom Riddle (aka Sauron) dead, the Oscar military structure fractured into a series of power struggles between his top lieutenants. We gave them a few months to fight things out before moving in to pick up the pieces. Coalition forces steam rolled through France and jumped the Channel, taking the British Isles back from Oscar forces through a series of lightning strikes by rapid deployment forces. With the judicious application of armoured forces and air assets, we were able to mop up all remaining Oscar forces within the year. Resettlement of the British Isles began in earnest shortly thereafter. Task Force Phoenix was officially disbanded a few months after the war ended to focus on rebuilding, and we all went our separate ways.

It was five years before I returned to Hogwarts. A memorial, crafted by hand at Harry's request, had been erected on school grounds honouring those that lost their lives in the mission to assassinate Tom Riddle. Every surviving member of Task Force Phoenix showed up to the dedication ceremony. It was great, seeing where everyone ended up after the war.

Ariana Dumbledore found us first. She was currently serving as a crew chief on an old UH-60 Black Hawk flown by Captain Reynolds for the Red Cross. They were running the Aalborg-Alconbury route, ferrying material into the isles from the mainland. When asked if he missed flying the next best thing to the _Millenium Falcon_, he grinned and said, "War's long done. We're all just folk now. Of course I miss it."

Hermione Granger joined us moments later. She and Ron Weasley had gotten married and had the 2.5 kids to go with the white picket fence. Working with Harry and Ginny, they had established an interim law enforcement agency based out of London composed of former Phoenix members.

What about Jeff and me? Well, we were the ones responsible for the selection and the stealth/evasion training process for Auror candidates up in the Brecon Beacons. Harry needed quality candidates to fill out his police force and he had asked us to apply SAS training standards to the new recruits. First we take away their wands. Then we put them through five weeks of hell and another three weeks of SERE training. The evasion training's always my favourite; nothing feels more satisfying than that jerk of absolute terror when I tap an unsuspecting trainee on the back during one of our hide-and-go-seek exercises.

Yeah, I know, I didn't really answer the question. Ariana and the others constantly drop annoying little hints about Jeff and me, that we should settle down, tie the knot. And, to be perfectly honest, we probably will. But for the time being, we're taking things one day at a time. It just felt good to be back home again.


End file.
